


The Benefit of Moods and Modals

by gooseberry



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Artificial Intelligence, Chocobros - Freeform, Friendship, Gen, Grammar Porn, Hurt/Comfort, Languages and Linguistics, Loss of Parent(s), Partial Mind Control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-03-23 20:08:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13795347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/gooseberry
Summary: So Noctisgetsit. He doesn’t understand it, but he comprehends it. He gets that it’s context, that it’s verbal and non-verbal cues, that it’s body posture and facial expressions and eye contact.For example: Ignis interprets direct eye contact as an intensifier for moods and modals.If Noctis says, “It would be nice if someone opened the door,” without making or maintaining eye contact, Ignis seems to hear,The door being opened would be nice, but it’s not a necessity under any present circumstances.If Noctis says the same words, in the same tone—“It would be nice if someone opened the door”—while making or maintaining eye contact, Ignis seems to hear,The door should be opened, and opening it should be made an appropriate priority.---For a FFXV Kink Meme prompt in which Ignis is an AI implanted into a human body, and he has been programmed to be utterly incapable of refusing an order from certain people. Noct thinks it's just him and is careful with how he phrases things around Ignis.Expect lots of hurt, not much comfort, and a frankly ridiculous amount of rhetorical analysis, especially around grammar. Also, Noctis and Ignis may be a little codependent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lagerstatte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lagerstatte/gifts).



> A fill for the FFXV Kink Meme prompt: 
> 
> How does Ignis manage to do all the stuff he does? Turns out it's because he's an AI implanted into a human body (not MT). Noct and Gladio (and Prompto if you want) know about this. He has exceptional computing capabilities but is otherwise human-like.
> 
> What only Noct knows is that Ignis has also been programmed to be utterly incapable of refusing an order from certain people. Noct thinks it's just him, and makes sure to be careful with how he phrases things around Ignis. In truth, before they left Insomnia, Regis expanded that to include Gladio and Prompto, and then ordered Ignis not to reveal it (or even made it so he doesn't recognise it himself when it happens).
> 
> I'm happy wherever you choose to take this! Whether it's the horror of it going wrong and everyone realising, or Ardyn taking advantage (he is Lucian royalty after all...), or mixing in other sci-fi tropes.

“Would you have time to stop by the store?”

Ignis frowns at Noctis’s question, and Noctis imagines what Ignis might be seeing: a map of central Insomia’s roads, the public transit timetables, the fluctuation of traffic before, during, and after the evening rush hour. When they were kids, Noctis used to dig in close, until he was only inches away, and stare at Ignis’s eyes as he asked Ignis to solve ridiculously massive equations. Noctis used to rattle off a stream of numbers, saying _plus this_ and _minus that_ , _multiplied by_ and _divided by_ , rambling on and on as he tried to decide if he could see the reflections of numbers scrolling up Ignis’s irises. 

Twelve years later, and Noctis still watches Ignis and wonders if Ignis sees the world through a screen—if Ignis has a dozen or so transparent browsers between him and the rest of the world.

“I might,” Ignis answers after a moment, the frown clearing off his face as he blinks. It’s not like a reboot, but it’s like a task has been closed: place the cursor on the x, then click. “Is there something that you would like, Noct?”

Noctis shrugs, watching as Ignis finishes gathering his files, setting them in his briefcase. “I dunno,” he offers when Ignis asks again, and Ignis frowns. Noctis wonders what Ignis sees when he looks at him—if Ignis considers the centimeters between Noctis’s eyes and eyebrows, the angle and depth of the corners of Noctis’s mouth, if Ignis is running numbers to interpret Noctis’s expressions and emotion.

“Well,” Ignis says as he moves toward the front door, Noctis following close behind, “if you decide there is something, just send me a message.”

“I will,” Noctis says. He stops a few feet from the doorway and leans against the wall, shoving his hands deep into his trouser pockets. It only takes a few moments for Ignis to slide on his shoes, and then he is straightening up and opening the door, ready to leave.

“Be safe,” Noctis tells him, and when Ignis says that he will, Noctis adds, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

x

Language is a messy thing. Noctis knows this intimately. Language is a series of arbitrary-as-fuck signs that have been given meaning. Language is a social lexicon that’s taken for granted: an expectation that you know what an apple is, that you know what a dog is, that you know what it means when someone rolls their eyes. Language is signs and cues that would mean absolutely nothing without thousands of years of context, which you just hope and fucking pray that everyone else gets, too. It’s like trying to solve for x on someone else’s maths exam, except you don’t know what the equation actually looks like, so you’re just throwing numbers and operations at it, hoping you aren’t making an utter cock-up of things. Pray to anyone listening that you don’t end up dividing by zero.

Noctis gets all of this in a way he can’t explain. It’s like eating an apple pie for the first time, then realizing you don’t have the words to describe it because (A) no one else knows what apples are, (B) pies don’t actually exist, and (C) you’ve never tasted something sweet before. Noctis gets language is this weirdly visceral way, like it’s a—like it’s an elephant lurking in the room, just behind Noctis, but whenever he tries to look at it straight on, or when he tries to tell someone else about it, the elephant fucking disappears, winking away like a fucking gnome disappearing into the ground.

(And look, even more context taken for granted. Have you heard the one about the blind men and the elephant?)

So Noctis _gets_ it. He doesn’t understand it, but he comprehends it. He gets that it’s context, that it’s verbal and non-verbal cues, that it’s body posture and facial expressions and eye contact.

For example: Ignis interprets direct eye contact as an intensifier for moods and modals. 

If Noctis says, “It would be nice if someone opened the door,” without making or maintaining eye contact, Ignis seems to hear, _The door being opened would be nice, but it’s not a necessity under any present circumstances._

If Noctis says the same words, in the same tone—“It would be nice if someone opened the door”—while making or maintaining eye contact, Ignis seems to hear, _The door should be opened, and opening it should be made an appropriate priority._

Eye contact turns ‘could’ into ‘would’, ‘would’ into ‘should’, ‘should’ into ‘must’. Exhortatives become imperatives.

So yeah. Language is messy, but Noctis has had fourteen years to work on it, to learn what lexicon was built into Ignis’s brain. Noctis isn’t perfect, but he’s better at knowing how Ignis will read his words and his tone and his body. He’s better than he used to be, and he’s careful—he’s really, really fucking careful, twisting his words into convoluted phrases to sidestep any certainties and keeping his eyes turned aside to avoid most eye contact. He is careful to an almost exhaustive degree—and maybe that phrase is more right than it should be; the care he takes has definitely exhausted most of Noctis’s language.

(Like they say: If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.)

So here is a short list of things Noctis has said to Ignis today:

1\. _Do you want anything? Coffee?_ [A request for information. Ignis is compelled to answer most questions, but if Noctis is careful, Ignis won’t be compelled in the type of answer he gives. Today Ignis had answered no, because Ignis could answer no.]

2\. _Where the hell is that jacket?_ [An example of non-verbal cues: The statement hadn’t been directed towards Ignis. However, Noctis and Ignis had been in the same room, Noctis’s voice had been raised, and Noctis had slammed the closet door immediately before speaking. Ignis had interpreted one or all of Noctis’s cues as a request for help. He’d found Noctis’s jacket—fallen down behind the couch—a few minutes later.]

3\. _There’s a council meeting tomorrow, right?_ [Half statement, half request for information. Noctis had raised his voice’s pitch at the end and Ignis had interpreted it primarily as a question; if there is a meeting tomorrow, Ignis’s attendance won’t change in priority.]

4\. _We should eat. Do you want to get something for lunch?_ [Two statements. In regards to the first, ‘should’ is a low- to mid-order compulsion for Ignis; when Noctis includes eye contact, the compulsion becomes more immediate. In regards to the second statement, a request for information after a compulsory statement lets Ignis evaluate the best way of fulfilling the compulsory actions, taking into consideration time, cost, and welfare of those involved. Today Ignis had agreed that they should eat, then had suggested a salad and soup bar near the Citadel.]

5\. _You can come up._ [‘Can’ is a modal of ability. Barring negative imperatives, Ignis is able to go up to Noctis’s apartment regardless of Noctis’s feelings on the matter. Instead, Ignis tends to respond to ‘can’ like it is ‘may’—he is allowed to come up, but he’s not compelled. Today Ignis had parked the car and followed Noctis upstairs to watch a sitcom.]

6\. _Would you have time to stop by the store?_ [‘Would,’ not ‘will’; ‘will’ implies certainty, which means Ignis _will_ —see what he did there?—be compelled to perform the action at some point in the near future. ‘Would’ is hypothetical; ‘would’ lets Ignis accept or discard the suggestion/request as best suits his schedule and priorities.]

7\. _Be safe._ [An imperative. The only imperative Noctis gives Ignis daily. It will dictate the majority of Ignis’s actions and reactions until Noctis or his dad gives Ignis a new imperative.]

8\. _I’ll see you tomorrow._ [‘Will’. It’s a certainty. It means Ignis will be compelled to make contact with Noctis at least once within the next twenty-four hours, with face-to-face contact being given the highest priority.]

And later tonight, after Ignis sends the standard evening text with tomorrow’s schedule, Noctis will reply, _k thnx. goodnight_

He doesn’t know if he can make Ignis sleep well, if he can make Ignis have happy dreams, or if Ignis even dreams at all, but— Well, whatever. It’s messy and shit, but Noctis pretty much has all of this under control.

x

“Hand me a box?” Prompto asks. There are a couple just a few feet away from him, close enough that he could grab them himself if he just stretched, or maybe scooted over a bit. Noctis is about to tell Prompto this, but Ignis responds first.

“Certainly,” Ignis says. He’s carrying a packed and sealed box that’s bound for the pile of similar boxes stacked out of the way in the empty kitchen. He changes course, though, taking the long way around the packing disaster that is the center of the room so that he can nudge a box with his foot, moving it within a lazy arm’s reach of Prompto. Noctis can’t help rolling his eyes.

“You don’t have to pander to him,” he tells Ignis, ignoring Prompto’s indignant _Hey!_ Ignis hums, hefting up the box in his arms as he continues across the room.

“There’s no harm in it. After all,” Ignis says as he sets the box on the pile, then shifts it into some kind of alignment Noctis doesn’t understand from this side of the kitchen bar, “this is neither Prompto’s apartment, nor his items that he’s packing. A little kindness is the least we can offer in return.” 

Noctis scoffs, then rolls his eyes at Prompto as Prompto says, “Yeah, what Ignis said. Hey, hey, Ignis—hey, what do you want me to do with the bookends?”

Noctis didn’t really realize just how much stuff he’s accumulated over five years in this apartment. Like, he gets the sheer amount of comics and embarrassing number of games still in shrink wrap, because those are things he likes—of course he’ll have lots of things he likes. There’s other stuff, though: weird-ass knickknacks that he can’t remember seeing before, a full set of throw pillows that were tucked in the back of the linen closet, the delicate-looking bookends that Prompto has set on the coffee table. It’s just—it’s _weird_ , like he’s pulling up his life and with every so many tugs, something foreign will come tumbling out of the corner and he has wonder, _Wait, was I really the person living here?_

Also, it means that there’s a lot of shit to pack, and Noctis has been tired of packing since the first hour, which had mainly involved him sitting on one of the bar stools, watching as Ignis packed up the kitchen with incredible single-mindedness and an alarming amount of bubblewrap. Noctis wants to be done: done with the packing, done with the work, done with the discomfort that’s gnawing in his stomach as Gladiolus and Prompto and even _Ignis_ keep touching and moving and changing Noctis’s things. 

Prompto’s holding a paperweight thing in his hand now, turning it this way and that as he looks at it. Noctis only vaguely recognizes it, though he remembers last seeing it in his dad’s office. At least, maybe there? Or Clarus’s?

“Careful,” Ignis says, brushing past Noctis. “That is an heirloom, I believe.”

Prompto’s body goes really stiff really fast, his fingers clutching the paperweight so tight that Noctis thinks he can hear Prompto’s knuckles pop. “Y-yeah?” he asks, his voice breaking. “Could you, um, please take it out of my hands now? Like, now-now?”

“I suppose it is a bit of a handful,” Ignis murmurs as he takes the paperweight from Prompto. It’s one of Ignis’s worse puns, and Noctis groans. Ignis glances over at Noctis as he sets the paperweight with the bookends, asking, “Problem, Noct?”

“Packing sucks.” Noctis looks around himself, at the piles of books and games and odds and ends that still have to be sorted and packed away, and he says it again, more vehemently this time: “Packing really sucks. Why couldn’t we just hire movers?”

[‘Why’. A request for information.]

Ignis nudges his glasses a little further up his nose as he says, “You wanted a normal life outside the Citadel. The responsibilities entailed in that arrangement—”

“I know,” Noctis interrupts, feeling himself begin to flush with embarrassment and guilt. He looks down at the box he’s been working on so that he won’t have to see any faces Prompto might be making. “It’s fine, I was just—just complaining.”

“Dude,” Prompto says loudly, “complain away. You’re right, packing seriously sucks. If I knew, I wouldn’t’ve come help.” He’s grinning at Noctis when Noctis looks over at him, and Noctis scowls and mimes throwing something at him, feeling a little better when Prompto makes a production of ducking the imaginary projectile. 

That is when Gladiolus yells from the bedroom, “Someone better come help me with this!”

“That had best be me,” Ignis says with a frown, “if we want anything from your bedroom to survive the move.” He must hear Noctis’s sigh, because he looks down at Noctis then, and he kinda smiles. “It’s not so bad, Noct. I promise you, we’re nearly finished.”

Noctis sighs again, because right now, his apartment is screaming anything but ‘nearly finished.’ Ignis chuckles, though, and leans down enough to pat Noctis’s shoulder before he leaves the room, heading toward the bedroom with his giant roll of bubblewrap.

x

(That was the first set of slip-ups.)

(There are others.)

x

“No way,” Noctis says again. When Prompto scowls at him, Noctis blinks slowly, then pointedly leans back in his seat, turning his head so he can watch the passing scenery. 

“It’s not like I’m worse than you,” Prompto argues. Noctis scoffs, and when Prompto doesn’t say anything more to him, Noctis assumes they’re done. He’s watching the markers on the side of the road—every fifth one is yellow on the top, and he doesn’t know why—when he hears Prompto wheedle in the front seat, “Ignis, let me drive?”

What Noctis expects is Ignis to shoot Prompto down; to laugh, maybe, and say that he values his life too highly, or maybe to make a stupid joke about Prompto already driving him crazy, or something like that.

Instead, Ignis is sounding serious and _thoughtful_ as he says, “That might be for the best.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Prompto whoops, and Noctis straightens up in his seat, asking stupidly, “What? Seriously?”

When he meets Ignis’s eyes in the rearview mirror, Ignis lifts his eyebrows and says, “Three drivers are better than two. Besides, the roads are rather empty out here. I doubt even Prompto could cause much trouble behind the wheel.”

“Don’t underestimate him,” Gladiolus says, and Noctis grins at him as Prompto gasps dramatically, saying indignantly, “Whoa, rude much?”

x

“Just take the damn potion,” Gladiolus snaps, and Ignis murmurs, “Of course. Better safe than sorry, after all.”

x

Prompto is leaning on the cooking station, his hands braced on the surface. Noctis is pretty sure that Prompto is in Ignis’s way, but Ignis hasn’t said anything about it, and Prompto seems cheerfully oblivious to the way Ignis keeps moving around him.

“Hey,” Noctis hears Prompto say, “you should make green curry.”

Ignis is leaning past Prompto, and Noctis watches as Ignis straightens up, then crosses his arms. Noctis can barely hear the _hmm_ Ignis makes, but when Ignis answers, his voice is loud enough for Noctis to hear: 

“We don’t have the ingredients for it tonight, but I shall make it tomorrow, provided we make an excursion for the necessities.”

“Seriously?” Prompto asks, and Noctis huffs to himself, because an excursion probably means running all over the place, looking for vegetables or herbs or whatever. Prompto’s basically beaming, though, and Noctis can hear Ignis chuckle when Prompto says, “Ignis, you’re so awesome.”

x

(“Leave me alone,” Noctis snarls, and he tells himself he doesn’t feel guilty as Ignis leaves the hotel room, saying, “I should go and see what news there is on Insomnia.”)

x

“Get down!” Gladiolus roars. A weight barrels into Noctis’s side before he can actually react, and Noctis finds himself sprawled on the ground. There’s an arm draped over Noctis’s shoulders and neck, and a hand is holding Noctis’s head down firmly. When Noctis twists his head just enough to look to the side, he can see Ignis’s face a few inches way. Ignis’s mouth is pressed into a tight, pale line, and his eyes are flicking between Noctis and the rest of the field. 

One of Gladiolus’s boots stomps on the ground right in front of Noctis’s face, close enough that Noctis can taste the dust it kicks up. Gladiolus pivots on the ball of his foot, and Noctis can feel the rush of displaced air as Gladiolus swings his great sword just above Noctis and Ignis. Ignis breathes in sharply, then Noctis feels Ignis tug him closer, dragging Noctis a few inches over the ground as he lurches closer to Noctis in turn, throwing the bulk of his upper body more fully over Noctis’s head and shoulders.

Noctis can’t see the blade hit the MT, but he hears it and feels it: a _crunch_ like shattering metal and electronics, then tiny, stinging burns as sparks fall on Noctis’s bare arm. There is a second _crunch_ and a couple more stinging burns before Ignis is clambering to his feet, then grabbing Noctis’s hand and pulling Noctis upright.

“Are you alright?” Ignis asks, and Noctis nods, stumbling over his answer: “Yeah, fine, I’m fine.”

Before Noctis can ask if Ignis is alright—before he can ask how badly Ignis has been burned—Gladiolus is striding back, grabbing Noctis’s shoulder and spinning him in the direction of the last few MTs.

“Less standing,” Gladiolus barks, “more fighting. Go, Noct.”

x

“Shouldn’t we be getting back soon?” Prompto asks. It’s barely dusk, though, and Noctis says as much.

“There’ll be more bites now,” Noctis finishes as he casts his line. The whir of the reel spinning as the line flies is delicious. He closes his eyes and feels himself grin like an idiot when he hears the _plonk_ of the lure hitting the water of the pond. 

It’s a short-lived paradise, though. Ignis touches Noctis’s shoulder, then fixes his glasses, the low light of setting sun glinting off the lens when Noctis looks back toward him. 

“More bites or not,” Ignis says, sounding apologetic but apparently not apologetic enough to not interrupt Noctis’s fishing, “we should be heading back to the haven.

“Perhaps,” Ignis continues, like he’s just all for pouring salt into wounds, “the fish will be biting if you rise before dawn.”

x

“It’s fine,” Noctis says, and he shakes the jacket again just to make a point. Ignis is still waffling, though, and Noctis sighs. “Ignis, it’s seriously fine. It’s just an extra anyway, and it’s huge on me.”

“A little mud will hardly make my jacket unserviceable,” Ignis fucking demurs, like his jacket isn’t dripping from where it’s hanging over his arm. Noctis grits his teeth, but before he can push his nice, clean, _dry_ jacket onto Ignis, Gladiolus intervenes:

“Just take Noct’s jacket and let’s go.”

When Noctis holds out his jacket again, Ignis takes it, and Noctis takes Ignis’s ruined jacket it turn. Noctis’s spare jacket is a little tight across Ignis’s shoulders, but it looks like it fits well enough. Ignis brushes his hands down the jacket, trying to smooth it out or something.

“Better?” Noctis asks, and he can’t help smiling when Ignis says, “Yes, much. Thank you, Noct.”

x

“King’s Knight, Iggy!” Prompto calls as soon as Ignis steps out of the camper. “C’mon!”

Ignis changes direction, pulling his phone out as he comes to take the empty chair beside Noctis.

x

(“You’ve got my back?” Noctis asks, sore and out of breath. The potion feels like cool water over his skin, and Ignis’s shoulder is warm and steady against Noctis’s own. When Noctis turns his head, Ignis’s face is close enough that Noctis can see the red marks where Ignis’s glasses rest.

“Always,” Ignis says.)

x

“A stew might be nice,” Ignis is saying as he inspects another onion. “We can have kebabs tonight, then use the leftovers for a stew tomorrow.”

Noctis doesn’t think Ignis is actually looking for a response, but he still grunts and mutters, “Yeah, sounds good.” 

Ignis nods, then adds the onion in his hand to the growing pile of ‘to buys’. There are already a few bags clustered around their feet, and Noctis knows that they eat a lot—especially Gladiolus and Ignis—but this seems a little excessive, _and_ they’re gonna have to drag it all back to the Regalia in the noonday heat. Ignis is still going strong, though, and now he’s asking the vendor about cucumbers. 

“Hey,” Gladiolus says as he pops up out of nowhere at all, and he throws his arm around Noctis’s shoulder without any warning at all. The weight of Gladiolus’s arm makes Noctis stagger a little, and Noctis digs an elbow into Gladiolus’s ribs as Gladiolus laughs. 

“Watch it,” Noctis snaps, and he tries to dig his elbow deeper when Gladiolus just laughs louder and ruffles Noctis’s hair.

“You guys gonna need help carrying this?” Gladiolus asks, and when Ignis says that they’ll manage—and Noctis is really dreading that, because the bags just keep piling up—Gladiolus lets go of Noctis. “Cool. I’m gonna go check on curatives and stuff. Gimme your wallet.”

Ignis pulls out a handful of gil—enough, presumedly, to pay for the produce—then hands his wallet to Gladiolus, saying, “See if you can stock up on bullets. I believe Prompto may be running low.”

x

“No, no, no,” Prompto says as Ignis makes to get up. “Don’t get up, don’t get up! Seriously, just let me and Noct clean up.”

“Me?” Noctis asks, but Ignis is sinking back down into his chair, and he looks really pleased about it, too, so Noctis lets Prompto pull him over to the cooking station.

x

“Pull over,” Gladiolus says, and as Ignis veers the Regalia onto the shoulder of the road he asks, “Did you see something, Gladio?”

x

“No way,” Prompto gasps. He’s laughing so hard he barely manages to say the words. His whole body is shaking with his laughter, and his arms are flailing. He manages to smack Ignis on the shoulder a few times, and Gladiolus reaches up between the seats to shove Prompto’s offending hand away from Ignis. 

“Don’t actually pummel our driver.” Gladiolus is grinning, though, and when Noctis jabs Gladiolus, Gladiolus just grins wider.

“Tell me,” Prompto manages, “that he broke his nose. Holy shit, _please_ tell me he broke his nose.”

“He broke his nose,” Ignis says immediately. Noctis can only see Ignis’s eyes in the rearview mirror, but it’s obvious that Ignis is pleased—that Ignis is really, really happy, as thrilled to be making Prompto laugh as Prompto seems to be thrilled with laughing so hard he’s making himself sick. “No—I’m sorry.” Ignis laughs shortly, sounding breathless. “That’s a lie, he didn’t.”

“Try not to sound too happy about that,” Noctis tries to interrupt. Ignis meets his eyes in the rearview mirror again; his eyes are crinkled in the corners, and when Noctis makes a face at him, Ignis’s eyes just crinkle more. This is a car full of assholes.

“He didn’t break his nose,” Ignis continues, still meeting Noctis’s eyes in the rearview mirror like—what’s the saying? Like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth? “But he did knock out one of his front teeth. He had to have an implant.”

Prompto’s gasp has to be too exaggerated to be real. He grabs his hair with his hands, yanking at it, then whirls around in his seat, kneeling up so he can lean over the back of his seat. “Seriously?” he asks, and Noctis winces.

“C’mon, Noct, show him your nice pearlies.” Gladiolus’s grin is definitely shit-eating now. Noctis scowls at him, and at Prompto, too. Prompto is reaching out, like he’s going to poke Noctis in the face or something, or maybe grab Noctis’s face to try and make him smile. Noctis sinks back into his seat, putting as much space between himself and Prompto’s graspy hands as he can.

“Shut up, Gladio,” Noctis grumbles. Gladiolus shoves Noctis, scrunching him into the door, and Noctis curses at him as Prompto hangs over the seat, whining, “Come on, Noct, just smile—”

x

When Noctis shrugs, Gladiolus sighs, then rises to his feet so that he can circle around the campfire. Ignis doesn’t look up at him—he’s bent over in his chair, his head resting in his hands. 

“Iggy,” Noctis can hear Gladiolus say, “come on. Just go to bed. Maybe your headache’ll be gone when you wake up.”

Gladiolus’s hand is resting on Ignis’s shoulder, and Noctis watches as Ignis nods slowly, like his head is too heavy to move easily. Gladiolus says something quietly, the words lost under the popping of the fire, and Ignis nods again, then stands when Gladiolus moves his hand from Ignis’s shoulder to Ignis’s elbow.

x

“Smile!” Prompto calls, and Ignis smiles for the camera.

x

(There are a lot of slip-ups.)

x

“Seriously.” They’re halfway back to the car, and Prompto’s still going strong. “I’m just saying, hunts with bugs? Let’s not do ‘em, okay?”

“Seriously,” Gladiolus mimics, his imitation of Prompto’s voice close enough that Noctis can’t keep from smiling, “your thing with bugs? Maybe you should get over it, ‘kay?”

“Hey! Like, maybe,” Prompto says, his voice rising, “my thing with bugs is a little irrational, but y’know, people are allowed to have irrational fears. That’s why they’re called phobias, Gladio.”

Gladiolus snorts loudly, but it’s Ignis who speaks up:

“It’s only fair that we take everyone’s concerns into account,” Ignis says, sounding very adult. He looks like he’s trying not to smile, though, and Noctis braces himself. “If insects really bug you that much—”

Gladiolus actually guffaws.

“Well what about you, big guy?” Prompto jerks his chin up, and Noctis wants to roll his eyes. This, he’s certain, is gonna be a long-ass argument. “What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing,” Gladiolus really blatantly lies. Noctis almost chokes on his laughter, and Gladiolus gives Noctis a dirty look as he repeats to Prompto, “Nothing, kid.”

“No, come on,” Prompto digs, because Prompto’s good at stuff like that—just poking and prodding until you give up and just give him whatever he wants, because Prompto can be relentless. “Your biggest fear. What is it?”

 _The Marshal_ , Noctis mouths at Gladiolus, smirking when Gladiolus’s look gets dirtier. “I can tell,” Noctis says aloud, and Gladiolus curses, interrupting Noctis.

“Fine. Whatever. My biggest fear,” Gladiolus says, “is not getting a date.” Then his glare turns into a weird face that Noctis can only think of as smarmy. “Like you said, phobias are irrational fears.”

“Oh my _god_.” Prompto looks disgusted, and Noctis knows exactly how he feels. Gladiolus’s smug look really, really makes Noctis want to try punching him in the face, but Noctis is pretty sure that’ll just lead to even more pain—namely, pain for Noctis’s hand. Shit’s so unfair. 

“Are you serious right now?” Prompto asks, and when Gladiolus laughs, Prompto mimes gagging. 

Ignis gives a cough-like laugh, and when Noctis looks over at him, Ignis has a very small smile on his face. “It’s a fucking joke.”

Noctis groans, covering his face with his hands. He feels Prompto careen into him, and he staggers a bit before Prompto slings an arm over his shoulders, steadying him.

“I hate everyone,” Prompto moans, and Noctis lets Prompto steer him as they begin to walk toward the car again. “Dude—they’re awful, both of them.”

“We’re certainly not that bad.” Ignis sounds self-satisfied, and Noctis wisely holds his tongue. He may be young, and he may do stupid shit, but he knows a losing battle when he sees one, especially when it comes to Ignis and his puns.

“Yes, you are,” Prompto argues, because Prompto can be really naive sometimes. Noctis takes a step to the side, knocking into Prompto, but Prompto just keeps going. He’s gonna regret it—promptly, even. (Fuck, now Noctis is doing it.)

“So what about you?” Prompto’s arm tightens around Noctis’s shoulder for a moment, then Prompto’s pulling away from Noctis, taking a few quick steps so that he’s walking closer to Ignis. With his so-so guide gone, Noctis scrubs his hands over his face, then lowers his hands so he can actually see where he’s going. “What are you afraid of?”

Ignis hums thoughtfully. “I have a number of fears, affected by the situation at any given time.”

Prompto makes a frustrated noise as he lifts his hands and rests them on his head. “Come on, Iggy. Your number one fear—tell me.”

“Noctis’s death.”

Noctis is only half-aware that he’s stopped walking. It feels like—it’s like there’s a buzzing in his head, like the wasps they were hunting just before this. It’s not that Ignis’s answer surprises him—but it does. Two months ago, Noctis’s death would’ve been a huge concern for, like, the majority of Lucis, especially the Privy Council and its associates. Now there is no Privy Council, because there’s no longer a Crown City and there’s no longer a crowned king, so Noctis’s death would probably be even more concerning, especially taking the whole sole-heir-to-a-dynasty thing into consideration. So like, someone being afraid of Noctis dying? That’s not really surprising. Ignis saying that, though? That’s surprising.

“The hell was that?” Gladiolus is just behind Noctis, and he’s come to a stop, too. Everyone’s come to a stop.

“Iggy, why would you—” Prompto moves his hands, like they can finish his question. Ignis acts like they do. He frowns at Prompto, and at Noctis and Gladiolus, too, and he nudges his glasses further up his nose.

“You asked what my number one fear is. It’s Noctis’s death.” Ignis’s frown deepens, and his voice sounds worlds away from its self-satisfaction from just a few moments before. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Upset me? What about you?” Prompto’s voice is rising, but it’s hard for Noctis to focus on it. His mind is still buzzing, and it feels like words are disappearing beneath the buzz. He can barely catch Ignis answering back, “What about me?”

Prompto asks, "Are you okay?”

Ignis answers, "I'm fine.”

Prompto asks, and Ignis answers, and Prompto asks, and Ignis answers, and Prompto _asks_ —

Noctis thinks about being eight years old, stuck in bed and bored to tears; he thinks about asking Ignis question after question after question, asking until Ignis’s voice was gone, because Ignis couldn’t hold his tongue.

There is a rising sense of horror creeping up from Noctis’s stomach to his throat. Noctis swallows, then scrubs his hands over his face before he asks, “Prompto, what did you say to Ignis?”

“I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to, like, be a jerk or anything,” Prompto says. He’s rushing, stumbling through the words, and Noctis sees the way Prompto looks toward Ignis, then turns away just as quickly, the movement jerky. Noctis can feel his own neck and shoulders begin to grow tight.

(“Noctis,” Ignis is saying, “he didn’t mean anything by it.” He’s saying it like intent is the only thing that matters.)

“I’m not mad,” Noctis says to Prompto, ignoring Ignis’s reasoning. Prompto is looking between Noctis and Ignis, and Noctis is pretty sure that Prompto’s expecting Noctis to actually tear him a new one or something. (Intent doesn’t mean anything. Noctis knows that, because Noctis always has the best of intentions, but those intentions don’t always get translated that way. Not when it’s Ignis who’s on the other side.) 

“Hey,” Noctis says, taking a step forward. Prompto’s eyes snap back toward Noctis and Noctis says, “Promise. I’m not mad, I just need to know what you said to him.”

“I just—I dunno,” Prompto stutters out, “I just asked him to tell me. I thought it’d be silly.”

“You said, ‘Tell me’?” Noctis asks, and Prompto throws his hands up in the air, then starts digging his fingers into his hair. 

“I guess? Tell me, tell us? I dunno, why?” Prompto is starting to sound frantic, and Noctis definitely feels frantic. (Ignis is stepping closer to Prompto, saying, “Noctis, please.”)

(‘Please’ never means anything to Ignis. Imperatives are still imperatives, no matter how nicely dressed up.)

“Fuck,” Noctis breathes, and when Prompto yelps, _What, what did I do?_ , Noctis lifts his arms, folding them over the top of his head. “Okay,” he says, and then again, slower: “Okay. 

“Prompto?” When Prompto makes an _uh-huh_ sound, Noctis tells him, “I want you to tell Ignis to be quiet. Those exact words.”

(“ _Noct_ ,” Ignis says, and Noctis tells himself that Ignis doesn’t sound wounded.) 

“This is really weird,” Prompto says instead, obviously trying to look for a way out. Noctis says his name again, sharper than he really means to, and Prompto says, “Okay, okay, I just—Ignis, be quiet.”

Ignis huffs, and when Noctis turns to look at him, Ignis is pinching the bridge of his nose, his fingers knocking his glasses into a skewed angle. Ignis looks—well, to be honest, Noctis isn’t really sure. He doesn’t really say shit like this to Ignis anymore, hasn’t for years. The last time he told Ignis to shut up must’ve been five or six years ago, before Noctis had even left the Citadel.

(He remembers that when he used tell Ignis to shut up, Ignis would always storm off. He’d asked once, and Ignis had said, _I was too angry to speak to you._ )

It might be anger on Ignis’s face, or maybe it’s frustration, or maybe just a really deep exhaustion. Noctis isn’t sure which emotion it is that’s tightening Ignis’s mouth, which reason is making Ignis dig his thumb and pointer finger into the inner corners of his eyes.

( _I was too angry to speak to you,_ Ignis had said, because Ignis takes the cues from the world around him, and Ignis interprets and responds accordingly. Ignis’s compulsions are a double blind.)

“Fuck,” Gladiolus says from behind Noctis.

Noctis licks his lips, then bites them. A tiny piece of skin on his lower lip tears, and he can taste a bit of blood when he looks at Gladiolus. Gladiolus is frowning, and when he sees Noctis looking at him, he shrugs, then shakes his head.

“I swear, Noct,” Gladiolus says, “I had no idea.”

Noctis nods slowly, then says, “Gladio, catch him.” Gladiolus is quick on the uptake, and he’s already moving toward Ignis when Noctis says, “Ignis, go to sleep.”

It’s like the power has been cut off: Noctis can see Ignis’s eyes begin to roll back as his eyelids drop, and his hand falls from where it was massaging the bridge of his nose. His glasses are still askew, and they perch precariously on Ignis’s face as his body goes limp in a sickening, doll-like way, his joints—hips and knees and ankles—buckling. Gladiolus catches Ignis before he hits the ground, and Noctis hears the grunt Gladiolus gives, like the air has just been punched out of his lungs. 

“Wha— What the _fuck_?” Prompto blurts out, and Noctis pushes past him. Gladiolus has his arms wrapped around Ignis’s chest, just below Ignis’s armpits; Ignis’s head is hanging low, his chin resting on his collarbone, and his knees are bent beneath his dead weight. Noctis swallows—his mouth feels like it’s being flooded with spit—and crouches so he can grab Ignis’s knees, lifting them enough that Gladiolus can take a couple steps back, straightening Ignis’s buckled body out.

“Where you want him?” Gladiolus asks, and Noctis tries to ignore Prompto’s confused cursing. Ignis is heavy—of course he is. He’s a grown-ass man, taller and broader than Noctis; he’s leaner than Gladiolus, but that’s just it: he’s leaner than Gladiolus, which means he’s still broad, and his body is basically all muscle. And like this, in this broken doll state, he’s all deadweight. Noctis’s hands are already feeling sweaty and prickly, and he slides them further under Ignis’s knees so Noctis can clasp his hands together and carry Ignis’s weight on his forearms instead of his hands and wrists.

“Just—” Noctis glances around, then nods his head toward the left as he says, “Just over there, in the shade.”

The shade in question is a pretty sad thing, consisting of some half-hearted shadows cast by a cluster of sagebrush. Gladiolus and Noctis manage to fit most of Ignis beneath the low spread of the sagebrush, in the speckled shade. Ignis’s legs are left sticking half out into the sun, but Noctis figures that’s better than his head. When Gladiolus steps back, straightening up and popping his back with a groan, Noctis frowns, considering Ignis. He leans forward so he can turn Ignis’s head to the right, so that Ignis’s eyes are better covered by the shade; he looks over Ignis again, then slides Ignis’s glasses from his face, folding and tucking the glasses into the breast pocket of Ignis’s shirt. It will have to be good enough.

“He’s heavier than I thought,” Gladiolus says as Noctis stands back up.

Noctis scoffs, then says, “He’s all muscle. He only looks skinny because he’s always standing next to you.”

Prompto had followed them as they’d carried Ignis over, cursing in really understandable confusion. He’s fallen quiet, though, and now he’s standing just a few feet away from Gladiolus and Noctis. Noctis swallows—his mouth still feels like it’s flooding with spit—and wipes his damp palms on his trousers before he turns toward Prompto.

“Prom,” Noctis says. When Prompto looks at Noctis, Noctis can’t stop himself from wincing. Prompto looks freaked out: his eyes are big and wide, and his mouth is hanging open, and Noctis can see Prompto’s shoulders rise and fall from the heavy way Prompto is breathing.

“What?” Prompto asks, and he kinda almost sways a little. Noctis hesitates, his hands still rubbing against his trousers (his hands won’t stop sweating, won’t stop _prickling_ like he pinched all the nerves). He’s not sure if he should try to touch Prompto, if that—Noctis touching him—would just make Prompto freak more. 

“Prompto,” Gladiolus says, “you need to sit down.” He’s striding toward Prompto, and Noctis watches as Prompto sways again, then sits clumsily. With Prompto sitting in a crumpled heap in the middle of dirt and sagebrush, Gladiolus looks like he’s looming over Prompto, like a particularly grumpy chocobo looming over a chick. Noctis wipes his palms against his trousers once more, then edges closer, until he’s standing just behind Gladiolus.

“Prom.”

Prompto lifts his head enough to look up toward Noctis. His face is pale—like, paler than Noctis has ever seen before. The only real color on Prompto’s face are his eyes and his freckles; even his lips are edging toward a blanched sort of color. His mouth is still hanging open, and Noctis watches as Prompto’s lower jaw trembles for a couple moments before he finally speaks: “What the fuck is going on?”

x

(Noctis has nightmares sometimes. It’s not anything special—everyone has nightmares. Noctis knows that. He knows that he’s not special.

Noctis—just like everyone else—has nightmares, and his nightmares come in all of three flavors: 

(1) Nightmares about his mom. He never knew her—that’s what happens when your mom dies in childbirth—but he knows what she looked like, and he knows what she sounded like, and he knows that she loved him. Those are the kind of things you learn from home videos, and Noctis knows all of his family’s home videos by heart. He only has pieces of his mom, just a couple hours of a woman who lived twenty-nine years before he managed to kill her. He knows those hours, though, down to each second. He knows when his mom will laugh at his dad, and he knows when his mom will touch her belly, and he knows when his mom will look at the camera and say, “It’s perfect, Regis.”

(2) Nightmares about the Marilith. Sometimes it’s stalking through the Citadel: he can hear its coils rasping on the marble stairs, or he can see it coming from down a long corridor. Other times, he’s in school, and he’s trying to convince his teachers and his classmates that the Marilith is outside, that they all need to stay inside where it’s safe. Most of the time, though, he’s lying on the ground, Juliette’s body curled over his, and he can’t move, and he wants to scream for his dad but he can’t because he can’t breathe with Juliette’s body covering his, and he wants to scream for his mom but he can’t because he killed her just by being born. 

(3) Nightmares about Ignis. He says, “I wish you were dead. Why won’t you just _die_?” Or he says, “Go _away_ , Ignis.” He says, “You should kill yourself,” or he says, “Go choke.” He laughs and he says, “Break a leg, Ignis,” and he watches as Ignis smiles and tumbles off the balcony.

So those are the flavors of Noctis’s life: trauma from his birth, trauma from his childhood, and trauma that’s lurking somewhere ahead in his foggy-as-fuck future.)

x

Gladiolus makes Prompto put his head between his knees and do breathing exercises until Gladiolus is sure Prompto’s not gonna faint. Noctis sits in the dirt beside them, and he mirrors Prompto because he’s not feeling really great now, either. By the time Gladiolus considers Prompto safe from fainting and/or being a pain in the ass (“I don’t need another body to carry,” Gladiolus had said when he’d first pushed Prompto’s head down, “so don’t you dare faint on me.”), Noctis is feeling less buzzy and prickly. That’s about all he’s got going for him, though.

“I just—I don’t really get what’s going on.” Prompto is sounding less terrified and more hurt, and Noctis isn’t sure which is worse. “I really—can you just tell me what’s going on?”

Noctis stalls, because he’s not really sure how to say this. It’s such a huge concept. He doesn’t really understand how Ignis works—how Ignis was put together, or how Ignis sees the world. There are words, because there are always words, but the words are messy. They don’t say exactly what Noctis wants (or needs) to say. But that’s part of the problem: Noctis isn’t actually sure what he wants (or needs) to say. He can feel it, in that same visceral way he can feel what he wants to say to Ignis, but he can’t make the words come out right. The words feel better when they’re rising up his throat, still stuck behind the back of Noctis’s tongue, but whenever he’s about to say the words—whenever the words come to the front of his mouth—they feel wrong: flippant and empty and too reductive for the enormity that is Ignis.

“He’s not like us,” Noctis says, so fucking constrained by the lack of words and lack of some kind of lexicon he can share with Prompto: a lexicon full of politics and family lineage and social burdens, all the scaffolding that structure his life, and Gladiolus’s life, and Ignis’s life. A lexicon of all those things that Ignis Ignis—not the _He’s just like that_ kind of way, but in the _There’s a scar on the back of his head—they cut through his skull to make him the way he is_ kind of way. A lexicon that makes Ignis what—and not who—he is. 

Prompto’s not from their world, though. Prompto didn’t grow up building the same lexicon that Noctis and Gladiolus did; Prompto doesn’t have the same lexicon that led to Ignis.

“Buddy,” Prompto says in that hurt-sounding voice, “I’m really gonna need you to start using your words here.”

Noctis laughs. He feels a little breathless, and he wonders if he should put his head between his knees again and just try to breathe. (Once, when he was eight or nine, he had told Ignis to hold his breath. Ignis’s face had turned blue-purple, and his limbs had locked up like he was turning to stone. Noctis had cried afterward, and Ignis had said, _I’m sorry, I was teasing him_ , and Noctis’s dad had slapped Noctis for the first time.)

“Ignis,” Noctis says again, trying to choose his words with care, “isn’t like us. He’s not—” Noctis stops and swallows, then tries again: “He not like us. He’s different.”

“Yeah, I—I’m getting that. I mean, the whole—he just.” Prompto waves his hand toward the sagebrush and Ignis beneath it. “Like,” he says, “you say he’s different, and yeah, okay—I get that. I don’t really disagree with that. Just, I don’t really get how he—I mean, you just said—

“Is he,” Prompto asks, his voice slowing to something like a crawl, “a robot?”

Noctis doesn’t roll his eyes, because Prompto’s question isn’t really that crazy. Or maybe it is crazy. Noctis gets that this entire situation—that Ignis’s entire existence—is crazy, but he feels removed from the insanity of it. Ignis has been a part of Noctis’s life for fifteen years now, and sometimes it’s hard to remember what’s normal and what isn’t. (It’s hard to know what’s real and what was written by human hands, a fiction implanted in Ignis’s brain.)

“He’s not a robot,” Noctis says. “He’s human—his body is human. He’s alive, it’s just.” Noctis wipes his hands over his trousers, then pulls his knees up close to his chest, tucking his hands into the tight space between his thighs and his calves. “His body’s just like ours, it’s just that—” He swallows. “It’s just his brain. His brain is different.”

Prompto’s laugh sounds tense. When Noctis lifts his head, he sees that Gladiolus is looking at Prompto intently, like he’s trying to decide whether he needs to shove Prompto’s head down between his knees again, to keep Prompto from fainting or going off the rails or—or whatever. Prompto’s laughter ends abruptly, and Noctis hears as Prompto takes in a wheezing gasp of breath.

“Fuck,” Prompto says. His voice is much lower now. “Is he an MT?”

“No,” Noctis says; Gladiolus huffs, then says, “Why the hell would the royal family have an MT? Of course he’s not an MT.”

“Okay, so like, you keep saying things, but you’re not actually telling me anything.” Prompto is looking between Gladiolus and Noctis, and Noctis looks back down at his knees . Prompto’s voice cracks, and Noctis thinks that this is what pleading has to sound like: “Just, like—tell me what the fuck is going on.” 

When Noctis looks up from his knees again, he meets Gladiolus’s eyes, and Gladiolus lifts his eyebrows. Noctis tugs at the fabric of his trouser legs and says, “There is a computer chip in Ignis’s head.”

Prompto takes another wheezy-sounding gasp, but he doesn’t interrupt. Noctis wishes he would.

“It’s like—it’s like a computer program. Kind of. I don’t really—” Noctis clenches his teeth shut and tsks with frustration. “It’s why he thinks the way he does. He can think faster than us, and he doesn’t forget things. It’s like trying to play chess against the computer, right? He can just—he can just think more, and he can think better than us. He can analyze things. He can solve problems.”

Prompto’s mouth is making the same kind of movements it had earlier, when Noctis and Gladiolus had laid Ignis’s body out beneath the sagebrush. Prompto’s mouth is hanging a little bit open, and his lower jaw looks loose; when his jaw moves, it’s tiny movements, like it is trembling—or like Prompto is chewing on words he can’t actually say. 

(Noctis knows that feeling intimately—the way words pile up in the back of his throat, the way he bites them back as he bites his tongue; the way it feels like he’s about to choke from all the things he can’t say.)

Gladiolus asks, “Do you need to put your head down again?”

Prompto’s mouth opens wider, then his jaw seems to stiffen. “No. No, I just—” He shuts his mouth with a _click_ loud enough that Noctis can hear; Noctis waits.

“How does that,” Prompto asks, “lead to—you know.” 

Noctis understands the theory of purging: evacuate the bad, all the pus and the rot and the bile and whatever else; just spit it all out. It’s a lot harder in practice, though.

“One of his things,” Noctis says slowly, “is that he has to listen to what I say. To what I say, and to what my dad says—what my dad said.” He breathes in through his nose. His throat is so dry; the air feels like it’s sand paper scraping its way down to his lungs. “When I tell him to do something, he has to do it.”

Prompto has to put his head between his knees again. Gladiolus rests a hand on Prompto’s back, just between his shoulders, and Noctis watches as Gladiolus rubs his hand back and forth in slow, sweeping motions. Maybe that’s how babies are supposed to be soothed, or little kids. Noctis doesn’t know, but the thought is kinda comforting, in its own way.

“Breathe in,” Gladiolus tells Prompto. After Gladiolus’s hand has smoothed its way right, left, right, left, and right, he says, “Breathe out. Slowly, Prompto.”

Noctis rests his head on his bent knees, his head turned so that his left temple is pressed against his kneecaps. Like this, he can see the sagebrush, and Ignis laid out beneath it. He doesn’t really know what he’s watching for. He’s never told Ignis to sleep before, so he doesn’t know what will happen: if Ignis will dream, or if Ignis will move in his sleep, or if Ignis will lie limp and unmoving until Noctis wakes him. (There are a lot of things that Noctis doesn’t know.)

“Better?” Gladiolus asks, and Noctis lifts his head. Prompto is shrugging, the movement looking tiny and fragile. Noctis wonders how heavy Gladiolus’s hand must feel on Prompto’s back, and then he wonders if it feels like a comfort or if it feels like a threat. 

“You guys are serious about this.” Prompto’s face has gone pale again. Gladiolus has moved his hand from Prompto’s back to Prompto’s shoulder, and Noctis is pretty sure that if Prompto sways or breathes strangely, Gladiolus will be shoving Prompto’s head back down again. To be honest, Noctis really sympathizes.

“Yeah,” Gladiolus says, “we’re serious.”

“How can you just—how are you okay with this? How do you just—” Prompto flails his arm, but it’s only a short burst of energy, one questioning motion of his hand, before he droops again, his arm falling limp at this side.

Gladiolus snorts, then says, “Noct and Iggy don’t play truth or dare.” Gladiolus’s tone is wry, and in another time and in another place, with another audience, it might’ve been funny. Here, in Leide, it’s not very funny at all. Noctis presses his forehead against his knees, closing his eyes when he hears Prompto make an indignant sound.

“Calm down, kid,” Gladiolus continues. “It’s compromise, okay? Noctis knows how this works—he and Iggy have been together forever. You know that.” Gladiolus’s voice is starting to sound cajoling, like he’s trying to sway Prompto to his side. Noctis keeps his eyes closed and tries to let himself get swayed by Gladiolus’s words, too. 

“They’re okay, y’know? Iggy takes care of Noct, and Noct makes sure Iggy’s taken care of, too. Noct,” Gladiolus says, and Noctis tries to believe him, “has this under control, okay?”

“Really?” Prompto asks, and Gladiolus huffs, saying, “Really.”

For his part, Noctis lifts his head and looks at Prompto from over his knees.

“Just—don’t talk to Ignis about it.” Noctis tries to say it blandly, tries to sound unconcerned, but Prompto breathes in sharply, like he did in school whenever he knew an answer someone else got wrong. He’s looking intently at Noctis, and when Noctis forces himself to meet Prompto’s eyes, Prompto leans forward. Noctis clenches his hands into fists, the fabric of his trouser legs caught between his fingers, and doesn’t let himself lean away.

“Why not? Doesn’t he know?” Prompto asks. Noctis hesitates, and Prompto asks again, louder: “Noct, does he know?!”

“It’s complicated,” Gladiolus answers, and Noctis is grateful for that—and he’s even more grateful when Prompto turns on Gladiolus.

“How is it complicated? It’s a yes or no question. That’s not—” Prompto’s voice cracks, and he swallows loudly before he says, “What the fuck.”

“He knows,” Noctis tries to say. “It’s just that—y’know, it doesn’t mean anything to him.”

“How can it not—”

“Prompto,” Noctis interrupts, “listen to me. He’s not like us, okay? He doesn’t—he doesn’t think the way we do. It’s like—” Noctis breathes in through his teeth, trying to find the words. Language is so fucking messy, though, and sometimes Noctis can’t make language work for him the way he wants, no matter how hard he tries. “It's like he doesn’t recognize it, okay?”

“How can he not—”

“Because,” Noctis interrupts again, “he was made that way. That’s the whole point.” Prompto is twisting the cuff around his wrist, but he stops like he’s guilty when Noctis says, “Think about it, Prom. If you had to do whatever I said, no matter what. Not, like—” He lifts his hand, shrugging tightly. “Not stupid prince stuff, like royal commands or whatever, but everything, even when you disagreed with me.”

Prompto’s mouth opens, then closes. Noctis watches as Prompto licks his lips, Prompto’s eyes looking down toward the dirt between them. It’s Gladiolus who finally answers:

“You’d resent him, Prompto. Anyone would.”

Prompto breathes in heavily through his nose; it’s at odds with how thin his voice sounds. “So they?”

“So they made someone who can’t resent Noct.” Gladiolus nods toward the sagebrush, where Ignis is still lying like a forgotten doll. “He doesn’t recognize it. I don’t know how it works, it’s like he thinks all of his decisions are his, all the time.”

“He was made that way,” Noctis repeats stupidly. He licks his lips; his bottom lip is sore where he tore at it, and when he licks it again, he can feel the tear reopen, blood beading. “He always—there’s always a reason he does something. It’s just—it’s a trick. He tricks himself into thinking it’s his decision, that everything is his decision.

“It’s like,” Noctis says, searching for a way to explain, “he’s working out a math problem in reverse, okay? You tell him that the answer is seventeen, so then he just.” Noctis shrugs again, and pain twists in his shoulders and neck; he can feel his muscles tightening, and he tries to drop his shoulders, tries to unclench his fists. “He solves backwards. He’ll decide what the equation was, why he ended up with seventeen.”

“This is insane.” Prompto swallows loud enough that Noctis can hear it, then says again, “This is insane. It sounds crazy. You know that, right?”

Noctis clears his throat. “Yeah, I know. Prompto, it’s not—”

He can’t finish the sentence. He can’t lie and say it’s not a big deal. It is a big deal—a fucking huge deal—though he thinks that Prompto probably doesn’t realize exactly how or why it’s such a big deal. Not yet, at least, and Noctis is going to have to find a way to explain it all, to explain how Ignis watches, and listens, and interprets, and reacts. Noctis has to find a way to describe the sheer magnitude of cause-and-effect that defines Ignis.

“He’s not,” Noctis tries instead, “different than before. He’s still—he’s Iggy, Prompto. He’s still Iggy, you just. You just have to be careful.”

Prompto flinches, looking over toward the sagebrush, and Noctis corrects himself in a rush, saying, “Careful of what you say. You just—” He breathes in deeply, and holds his breath as he counts to five. “I think that they might’ve changed things, made it so that Ignis does what you and Gladio say.”

Gladiolus is nodding, and he pats his hand on Prompto’s shoulder as he says, “Makes sense. If y’think about it, it explains some things about the last few weeks.” Before he can say more, though, detailing any of the probably innumerable ways they fucked up since leaving Insomnia, Prompto interrupts:

“Who is they?” he asks. Noctis feels his face begin to grow hot.

“My dad,” he tells Prompto, “and his Council.” He wants to say more, wants to know what he can say to make it sound less like his dad and the Privy Council are monsters or mad scientists or just really sketchy politicians. Prompto’s face looks disgusted and kinda terrified, and Noctis doesn’t want to think that Prompto’s expression is because of Noctis’s dad and the things that his dad had done to Ignis.

“Why would—”

Gladiolus interrupts Prompto, saying bluntly, “It makes sense. They knew the treaty was gonna fall through, and that we would be in the wind. The entire empire’s after us, and we need every advantage we can get.”

“And the advantage,” Prompto’s voice is somewhere between a question and a statement, “is Ignis.”

“Yeah,” Gladiolus says. His voice is firm and steady, and Noctis is so fucking grateful that Gladiolus is here, and that Gladiolus comes from the same background and was raised on the same foundation as Noctis. He is so fucking grateful that Gladiolus has the same lexicon in his head, that Gladiolus looks at Ignis and sees reason, and not just the horror show Prompto must be imagining. “The advantage is Ignis.

“Look, kid.” Gladiolus grips Prompto’s shoulder and jostles him. “If you wanna get squeamish, that’s fine. I get that this has to seem crazy.” Gladiolus nods toward Noctis, and Noctis forces himself to keep from ducking his head when Prompto follows Gladiolus’s nod and looks over toward Noctis. “We both do. I promise that we get it.

“Just don’t let this get in the way. You’ve gotta be careful, sure, and you gotta make sure you don’t go running your mouth, but don’t let this get between you and Iggy, or between you and us.” Gladiolus jerks his thumb toward Noctis, and Prompto nods mutely. Gladiolus is frowning, and his face looks tired, like everything he’s been saying has taken more energy than it should.

Noctis wonders if Prompto has remembered that Gladiolus’s dad is—was—on the King’s Privy Council, too—if Prompto has realized that Gladiolus and his dad are nearly as complicit in Ignis’s existence as Noctis and Noctis’s dad.

(Noctis wonders if Gladiolus is trying to replay every conversation of the past few weeks, too, if he’s trying to remember what he said to Ignis: words and tone, eye contact and physical contact, all those ways to twist offhand comments into commands.)

Prompto’s slumped down, looking just as tired as Noctis feels. His shoulders are curved and his head is hanging low, and he is playing with the cuff on his wrist, twisting it back and forth. When Noctis says his name, Prompto flinches and lets go of the cuff. “Prom,” Noctis says again, and Prompto meets Noctis’s eyes.

“Noct,” he asks, his voice cracking, “why did they choose Ignis?” 

Noctis doesn’t look toward Ignis, or anywhere other than Prompto’s face.

“There was,” he says as neutrally as he can, telling himself that he can’t smell chlorine, that he can’t feel chemicals burn his eyes, “this kid who drowned.”

x

Here is what Noctis knows:

Morgan Walcott (7) was born on June 23rd, 734 ME. He had five immediate family members: father Adrian Walcott (37), mother Vesta Walcott (38), brothers Chance (13) and Doron (10), and sister Cati (3). For Morgan’s seventh birthday, Adrian and Vesta threw a party at the neighborhood pool, from 12:00 pm-3:00 pm. Guests included Morgan’s grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends. 

At 1:29 pm, Morgan’s maternal uncle (Caleb, 31) called emergency services about a child who was not breathing. An ambulance arrived at 1:36 pm, and Morgan was transported to the nearest hospital with his parents. According to later adult testimonies, Morgan had been underwater anywhere from two to seven minutes, and had been without oxygen for between eleven and sixteen minutes.

Morgan was in a coma for four days; when he woke, he was in a vegetative state. He was subsequently diagnosed with brain damage due to oxygen starvation. Four weeks after the incident, he was classified as being in a persistent vegetative state; three months later, he was classified as being in a permanent vegetative state.

Seven months after the incident, Adrian and Vesta Walcott were contacted by a committee from King’s University Medical Center. The committee members included neurologists, general and specialized physicians, ethicists, attorneys, and several members of the King’s Privy Council. Three weeks later, Adrian and Vesta Walcott rescinded their parental rights to Morgan. Morgan was made a ward of the State, he was declared legally dead, and his body was donated to King’s University Medical Center.

x

( _Here is the story that Noctis builds:_

_Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Morgan. He had a mom and a dad, and they loved him very much. He had two older brothers and one younger sister, and they all played together every day. His family was very happy, and his childhood was practically perfect in every way._

_When Morgan turned seven, his mom and dad threw him a birthday party, and all of Morgan’s family and friends came. Morgan was born in the summer, and this summer day—the day of his birthday party—was perfect. The sky was bright blue, with small, fluffy clouds, and the weather was hot, which made the water in the pool—cold and crisp—feel even better. The kids played in the pool while the adults talked._

_Morgan’s mom went to get the cake from the cooler, and she was putting in the candles when she heard the screaming. Morgan’s dad had pulled Morgan out of the pool, and Morgan’s face looked white and blue. When his mom did CPR, she left smears of frosting from the cake on Morgan’s chest. The ambulance came, and it took them away: Morgan, and his mom, and his dad._

_Morgan’s mom and dad loved him very, very much, and they waited for him to wake up. When he did, though, there wasn’t anyone inside him anymore. His mom and dad kept waiting and waiting, though, because they loved him, and they believed in miracles. They talked to doctors and specialists and chaplains; they waited, and they prayed, and they waited._

_Then one day, a group of people came: doctors and specialists, and scientists and philosophers and politicians, and most importantly, attorneys. They talked, and they talked, and they talked, and in the end, Morgan’s mom and dad gave Morgan to the scientists, because the scientists said, “We can make him wake up again.”_ )

x

Noctis was five when he first met Ignis. Ignis’s hair was still buzzed close to his scalp, and his body was still atrophied. Noctis’s dad had pushed Noctis forward, until Noctis and Ignis were standing face to face, and he had said to Ignis, _Please, take care of my son._

**Please** is an adverb, modifying the politeness—but not the intensity—of attached commands, requests, and prohibitions. In this case, _please_ modifies the politeness of the following verb _take_.

 **take** is an imperative. _Take_ is a transitive verb: the imperative takes a dropped second-person pronoun as the subject and agent, while the following _care_ is the direct object and patient. 

**care** is a noun and the direct object of the verb _take_. Additionally, _care_ is the patient of the sentence, as _care_ is the receiver of action—i.e., being taken.

 **of my son** is a prepositional phrase that functions as an objective genitive. The preposition _of_ begins _care_ ’s objective genitive and a prepositional phrase; the noun _son_ is the direct object of the preposition _of_ , completing the objective genitive. Inclusion of the possessive adjective _my_ completes the prepositional phrase _of __ son_ while further modifying _care_ ’s objective genitive. The full noun phrase of the grammatical patient becomes _care of my son_.

Please [adverb of politeness], [dropped 2pc pronoun; subject and agent] take [2pc imperative verb] care [noun; direct object and patient] of my son [preposition, possessive adjective, noun; objective genitive]. 

The six words were—and still are—a compulsion, built around the central lynchpin of the imperative _take_. Noctis’s dad had looked Ignis in the eyes, and Ignis had interpreted the eye contact as identification of the imperative’s dropped pronoun; Ignis was (is) the subject and agent of the verb. Noctis’s dad had rested his hand on Noctis’s shoulder, and Ignis had interpreted the physical contact as familial identification; _care of my son_ meant (means) care of Noctis, and Noctis’s care was (is) the object and patient of the verb. Even the adverb _please_ meant (means) something: politeness used to mitigate guilt or discomfort.

Then, Ignis had held out his hand, and Noctis had grabbed it; then, Noctis hadn’t known what Ignis was or how Ignis saw the world; then, Noctis hadn’t understood that he and his dad—their words and their bodies and their movements and their existence—were the mandate that controlled Ignis in his entirety.

Now, Noctis knows what Ignis is, and the lexicon that was built into Ignis’s brain. Now, Noctis thinks, _Take means to grab, or to grasp, or to hold onto; take means to put your hands on something and possess it; take means to hold something in your hands,_ and he wonders if that— _take_ as _hold in your hands_ —is why Ignis had held out his hand.

x

(According to his birth certificate, Ignis’s birthday is February 7th. Once, when Noctis was seventeen, he’d wondered if Ignis’s birthday was the same day as Morgan’s death, and then he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. He’d thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it, worrying at it—the date of Morgan’s death—like it was a sore in his mouth.

He had nightmares: Juliette sitting in her rocking chair, her arms wrapped around a boy who looked the same as Ignis. Noctis’s mom murmuring, _It’s perfect, Regis_ , while she lit the candles on a birthday cake. Ignis smiling at Noctis, then jumping into the pool when Noctis spat, _Just go drown_. The rasp of the Marilith’s skin as she curled up in the dark space beneath Noctis’s bed.

And night after night: His mom sitting beside a hospital bed, barefoot and with frosting smeared in the corner of her mouth. _I love you_ , she singsonged. _Sweetheart, I love you so much. I love you so much._ Her sundress dripped on the floor, and when she laid her head on the hospital bed, her hair left the sheets wet. The room smelled like chlorine. _I love you, darling,_ his mom crooned, her hospital chair creaking like Juliette’s rocking chair. _I love you more than anything, so please come back to me—_

When a holiday weekend came up, he cajoled his way into KU Medical Center’s records department, and he spent two and a half days digging through death certificates. Morgan Walcott’s certificate wasn’t in the Ws—Noctis made his way through the entirety of the letter on the first day and emerged empty-handed. The second and third day, he leafed through all of the “Identity Unknown” certificates; he found Morgan’s certificate halfway through the third day, when he was almost to the end of the “Identity Unknown” files. 

He smoothed out Morgan’s death certificate, pressing the creases flat; he smoothed his thumb over the embossed seal on the upper corner, and he breathed in through his nose, wondering if he could smell chlorine. (He could hear the door to the records department open, a thrumming creak like the rocking of Juliette’s chair.) He smoothed out the certificate once more, and he took a picture with his camera, because a paper copy would be too easy to misplace. A paper copy would be too easy for Noctis to leave out where Ignis would see it, would read and interpret and understand in his alien way:

_Date and Hour of Death: March 2d, 742 ME; 9:30 AM._

The nightmares didn’t stop, but they changed; Juliette held Noctis as she rocked, and Noctis’s mom’s hair was dry when it brushed against his cheek. The smell of chlorine faded.

By early summer, Noctis had managed to bully his way into temporary possession of original memos and minutes from his dad’s Privy Council. The originals were unredacted, and it didn’t take him long to find the memos for February 7th, 742 ME. The longest memo had a verbatim from the afternoon of February 7th, when the KUMC committee first contacted Adrian and Vesta Walcott.)

(That—Ignis’s birth taking place before Morgan’s death—might be worse, but Noctis isn’t sure. He’s not really a good judge, not when it comes to issues so close to home; not when it comes to Ignis.)

(He tries not to think about the comfort he finds in Ignis’s birthday—that Ignis’s birth happened just before Morgan’s death, just like Noctis’s birth happened just before his mom’s death—but he mostly fails.)


	2. Chapter 2

Noctis’s muscles are tight and sore when he climbs to his feet, and there is a deep twinge that is shooting from his shoulders to his hips. He turns toward Ignis—away from Prompto and Gladiolus—as he rubs at his right shoulder; he can feel his face fold up in a grimace from the pain. 

“Noct,” Prompto asks from behind him; Noctis digs his fingertips more deeply into his shoulder. “What should I do?”

When Noctis rolls his right shoulder back, the twinge is less. It’ll have to be enough for now. He scrubs his hands over his face, then turns back. “About Ignis?”

Prompto nods where he’s still sitting in the dirt, and Noctis scuffs his boot against the ground. Noctis has fifteen years of history with Ignis, their lives tangled closely enough that they were pretty much living in each other’s pockets. He’s spent fourteen years watching his own tongue, learning through trial and error. He can say most nothing at all, or he can speak at length about what he’s learned—how Ignis reads slamming doors as mood intensifiers, how yawning in the middle of a request will make Ignis lower the request’s priority, how shrugging and avoiding eye contact will prompt Ignis to reevaluate and reorganize his compulsions. Noctis doesn’t think there’s a happy medium when it comes to explaining Ignis—it’s all or nothing. For this—for Prompto looking like he still might faint—Noctis chooses to err on the side of nothing.

“Just,” he tells Prompto, “don’t use imperatives.”

Prompto’s frown grows, and he looks toward Gladiolus, then back up toward Noctis. Noctis knows what he’s going to say before he says it: “What’re imperatives?”

“Commands. Like ‘be quiet’, that’s an imperative,” Noctis says. Prompto shakes his head, still frowning, and Noctis thinks he can see Prompto’s shoulders curl in tighter. Noctis isn’t sure if it’s because Prompto doesn’t understand, or if it’s because Prompto is thinking about Noctis telling him, _I want you to tell Ignis to be quiet. Those exact words._

“Prom,” he says, “it’s not—it doesn’t have to be hard, okay?” This is a lie. Life with Ignis is a never-ending grind, second-guessing and hesitating, being thrown by the tiny things: _Did he hear me tapping my fingers? Has it been long enough since I made eye contact? Is my posture slouched enough?_ It is a body-wide, life-long endeavor, and for each of Noctis’s successes—a day of Ignis going about his own business, uninterrupted by Noctis’s stupid, clumsy tongue—there are a dozen days poisoned by regret. That’s not what Prompto needs to hear, though—that won’t help any of them. What he needs to hear is Noctis saying, “Just don’t tell him to do things, or ask if he’ll do something. 

“Prompto,” Noctis says. When Prompto meets his eyes, Noctis says, “If you want him to do something, or if you think he should do something, just ask him if he can, and he’ll decide for himself.” He smiles at Prompto; it makes his face feel tight and hot. “Easy, right?”

“Ask him if he can,” Prompto repeats back, and Noctis feels his smile grow wider and his cheeks grow tighter.

“He’ll think you’re just asking a yes or no question. The idea’s brought up, and if he can do it, he’ll decide whether he wants to.” Noctis sounds more certain than he feels. There are so many outside influences: Prompto’s posture and facial expression, his voice’s pitch and volume, his cadence and placement of stresses, whether he stammers or his voice cracks or he just trails off, because Ignis will read all of that and take it all into consideration. ‘Can you’ is only a small cue away from ‘you must’.

Prompto seems a little reassured, though, and it’s enough to keep Noctis lying like a fucking champ: “It’ll be fine, Prom.”

‘Fine’ is relative. Noctis knows that his ‘fine’ is worlds away from Prompto’s, just like his ‘normal’ and his ‘crazy’ and his ‘fair’. The gaps in their expectations are enormous, dug out by childhoods lived in different social structures. Prompto’s ‘fine’ is probably defined by health and safety in a zero-sum game; for Prompto, ‘fine’ probably means that everyone is alive and well and mostly happy. For Noctis, ‘fine’ means the weight of majority: ‘fine’ is more lives saved than lost, and ‘fine’ is choosing the lesser crimes over the greater, and ‘fine’ is being mostly not miserable.

For Noctis, ‘fine’ is Ignis and the delicate balance between useful and human.

Ignis hasn't moved from where he was laid out beneath the sagebrush. Noctis crouches beside him, then slowly sinks back until he’s sitting on his ass. The sun has shifted in the sky, and the sagebrush’s shade has stretched out a couple feet farther than before, enough that Noctis is covered in shade, too. The coolness of the shade and the slow, steady tempo of Ignis’s breathing are like heavy blankets thrown over Noctis. He can feel his tiredness turning the sharp corner to exhaustion, and he gives in to it—lets himself fall forward so that his head is resting on Ignis’s chest.

The angle is awkward, and the twinges running from Noctis’s shoulders to his hips pick up again, like a hot needle dragging a sparking thread down the length of his body. Ignis is breathing, though, and Noctis turns his head so that he can press his ear against Ignis’s breastbone. Ignis’s heartbeat is as steady as his breathing, and Noctis thinks of his dad—thinks of the years before, when Noctis still lived in the Citadel, when his dad used to pull him close and hold him until Noctis finally squirmed to freedom. When Noctis was little—when his dad was stronger and bigger, as seemingly infallible as the Wall—Noctis used to press his ear against his dad’s chest and listen to the steady beat.

(He thinks of Juliette, too—sitting in her lap as she rocked in her chair, feeling the beating of her heart and the thrumming of her chest as she hummed lullabies. He thinks of how her foot would tap on the floor, rocking the chair like a metronome. She used to rub his back when he was falling asleep, just like Gladiolus had been rubbing Prompto’s back a little while ago: long, warm strokes that had made him feel—)

One of the buttons on Ignis’s shirt is digging into Noctis’s cheek. Noctis swallows and doesn’t move.

(He doesn’t remember his mom’s heartbeat. It’s another piece of her that’s missing, another gaping hole somewhere deep inside him.)

Noctis closes his eyes, clenching them tightly enough that he can see stars blooming over his eyelids—tightly enough that his eyes are burning from pain, and not from really inconvenient tears. Ignis’s heart keeps beating, a _tu-tum_ resting just below Noctis’s cheek, and Noctis listens to it hungrily. He is abruptly jealous of the physical contact that Gladiolus had given Prompto. He wants a hand to smooth its way across his back; he wants Juliette’s hands, and he wants his dad’s hands. He wants to hear their heartbeats again: his mom’s, and his dad’s, and Juliette’s. 

That is what moves him to sit up again. Ignis’s heart is still beating, but Noctis is pretty much batting a thousand when it comes to stopping people’s hearts, and if Ignis’s heart stops beating—

He scrubs his face with his hands, digging his knuckles into his eyes, then wiping them with the heels of his hands. His nose and throat are congested, and he tries to swallow the thick feeling down. His whole head feels thick, like it’s been stuffed full of hot coal—fuck, he’s stupid. He sniffs hard, then swallows down the thick feeling again. Everything is fine. Ignis is alive, and Gladiolus is alive, and Prompto is alive, and that’s enough. That needs to be enough for right now.

Ignis’s head is still turned to the side, his right cheek resting on the ground, his face turned in toward the sagebrush. At home, in Insomnia, Noctis used to wake Ignis up by shaking his shoulder. (At home, in Insomnia, Noctis didn’t feel this yawning hunger for affection and love. At home, in Insomnia, Noctis’s hardest job was letting Ignis herd him into Council meetings on time. At home, in Insomnia, the greatest danger in Ignis’s life was Noctis.) Noctis reaches out, touching Ignis’s shoulder. (Noctis thinks he might’ve been happy back in Insomnia. This isn’t Insomnia, though; this is Leide. Here, outside the Wall, it feels like the loss of his dad might drown Noctis one day. Here, outside the Wall, Noctis is a slave to the Astrals’ whims. Here, outside the Wall, Ignis’s handling is beyond Noctis’ control.)

He lets go of Ignis’s shoulder and touches Ignis’s face instead. There’s stubble on Ignis’s jaw—it’s too pale for Noctis to see, but Noctis can feel it prickling against his palm. He leans a little closer and taps his fingertips against Ignis’s cheek, and he says, “Ignis, you need to wake up.”

Maybe it’s like restarting a computer: the deeper breathing is the whirring of fans, and the nasally _hmm_ is the start-up chime; the way Ignis closes his eyes tighter before he opens them is the flickering of the monitor when it’s first turned on. Noctis watches as Ignis blinks rapidly, again and again and again; maybe this is Ignis stuttering through his program startup.

“Ignis,” Noctis says again, pulling his hand away from Ignis’s face, “you need to wake up.”

(Maybe this—repeating a command—is like double-clicking an icon again, impatient because the program is stalled. Maybe Noctis’s fingers on Ignis’s cheek had been like a cursor searching for the start.)

Ignis turns his head like he’s following Noctis’s hand. He looks confused, like he’s just woken up in a strange place with no memory of how he got there, or when he even fell asleep. Hah. Noctis smiles at him, hoping that his face is clear and that his eyes aren’t swollen. Ignis briefly smiles back at Noctis; it looks more like a reflex than anything, the way his mouth jerks upward on either side before it goes slack again.

“Did I fall asleep? Out _here_?” Ignis asks. He shifts, putting a hand on the ground and pushing himself up until he’s sitting. Noctis scoots back a couple inches, so that there’s some room between them—not enough, but some.

“Something like that,” Noctis says, and Ignis looks around them—at the sagebrush and the dirt and the sky above—with a frown.

“Something like that,” he echoes after Noctis. It is a piece of information, and Noctis knows that Ignis is taking it in along with the way Gladiolus and Prompto are standing yards away, like they’re trying to give Ignis and Noctis privacy. Ignis, Noctis knows, is whirring in his brain, lining up the pieces of information he has and searching for the thread of logic that can connect everything together. 

“Your glasses are in your pocket,” Noctis offers, and Ignis sighs heavily as he plucks his glasses out of his pocket.

“I imagine it was heatstroke. Rather embarrassing—I should have taken greater care in regulating my water intake.” Ignis inspects his glasses closely, his head lowered, and Noctis only notices the faint flush on Ignis’s face and neck because he’s looking so closely. Ignis is embarrassed, and probably ashamed; Noctis can read it in Ignis’s flush and diverted gaze and slumped posture. 

This, Noctis knows, is the trick, the way Ignis’s programming double-blinds him: 

Ignis was built to recognize and interpret signs, then respond accordingly. Ignis isn’t smart, because that’s something other people [read: humans] are; Ignis is more than smart—Ignis is the capability of analysis. Ignis recognizes and interprets the signs and cues, and Ignis’s final response takes all of the information—contradictory or not—into consideration.

Ignis, though, has a conditional statement built into the base of his programming. Ignis, in his entirety, is a conditionality: _**If**_ [Noctis Lucis Caelim or Regis Lucis Caelim]  is the agent of an event in which Ignis Scientia is the patient, _**then**_ Ignis Scientia  will alter his own perception until he perceives himself as both agent and patient. When the conditional statement is triggered, it turns transitive verbs into intransitives: Noctis acting upon Ignis becomes Ignis acting upon Ignis.

The conditional statement overrides everything, altering Ignis’s functioning. Ignis accepts or discards signs as necessary, in order to maintain his altered perception. The effects cascade: Ignis isn’t meant to discard signs and cues, so he alters his perception in order to conceal his actions from himself. He alters his perception in order to alter his perception in order to alter his perception, and the result is an Ignis who rewrites himself through a multiplication of layers, until he’s rewritten himself so deeply that his perception is the only reality he can comprehend.

So Noctis is pretty sure that this is what happens after he touches Ignis’s face and tells him, _Ignis, you need to wake up._ :

 **Event:** Ignis wakes up in a desert in Leide.

 **Information:** It is a warm day, with a clear sky. They’re in a desert, and they have just completed a hunt. Ignis is lying in the shade of a sagebrush plant; his body had been neatly laid out, and his glasses had been safely tucked into a pocket. Noctis is sitting beside him and seems upset. Gladiolus and Prompto are waiting, standing far enough away to give Noctis and Ignis privacy. Noctis says that Ignis wasn’t asleep, but ‘something like that.’

Ignis was asleep—or ‘something like that’—because Noctis had told him, _Ignis, go to sleep_.

 **Conditional Statement:** Noctis’s role as the agent triggers the conditional statement, and Ignis begins to change his perception, reorganizing the information he has in order to rewrite the event so that Ignis is the agent of his own situation.

 **Altering of Perception:** It’s a warm, sunny day in Leide, which is an arid region. They were involved in a hunt earlier, which means physical exertion. Ignis had been carefully laid out in the shade, with his glasses tucked into his breast pocket, which means someone had felt the need to ensure Ignis’s physical wellbeing. Noctis looks upset, and Gladiolus and Prompto are standing at a distance, so it is likely something has happened that has shaken all three of them.

Heatstroke, and a resulting collapse, can fit the above information, and it allows Ignis to be the agent in his own situation: his own neglect caused his physical collapse.

 **Cascade Effect:** There’s contradicting information: it’s not warm enough for anyone to get heatstroke, and the hunt only took moderate exertion. Noctis, Gladiolus, and Prompto all seem physically well at first glance; it’s unlikely for only Ignis to get heatstroke, especially to the point of collapse.

Embarrassment and shame will allow Ignis to ignore the discrepancies, so Ignis rewrites, and rewrites, and rewrites.

He flushes red as he inspects his glasses, embarrassment and shame evident in his posture and his lowered eyes, and Noctis knows that Ignis has rebuilt his reality again. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Noctis says gently, because he learned years ago how far Ignis can cascade; any contradictions Noctis offers will only make Ignis rewrite and rewrite and rewrite, until the loop hangs him and leaves his skin pale and cool, his eyes glassy as he murmurs, _My apologies, I’m afraid I blanked for a moment—what were you saying, Noctis?_ Noctis is as entrapped by Ignis’s conditional statement as Ignis. “I promise, Specs, it’s fine. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Ignis sighs again as he puts on his glasses, settling them high on his nose. “Still, I apologize for the inconvenience, Noct.”

His face is still red, and he’s still not meeting Noctis’s eyes. When Noctis tugs on his sleeve, Ignis’s shoulders seem to slump even more. It’s disheartening, to say the least. Noctis tugs on Ignis’s sleeve again; he wishes he could tug Ignis into the proper shape—wishes he could push Ignis’s shoulders straight and lift Ignis’s chin high.

“It’s not an inconvenience. Besides,” he tells Ignis, his fingers curved like hooks, caught in the folds of fabric at Ignis’s elbow, “Prompto needed to sit down for a while, too. Gladio made him put his head between his knees, said he’d leave him behind if he fainted.”

It’s not a lie. It’s truth, carefully cut from its contexts, left unattached and free-floating.

Ignis’s shoulders don’t straighten, but his chin lifts a little. He looks past Noctis toward Gladiolus and Prompto, and Noctis follows his lead and looks over his shoulder. Prompto is standing with his back to Noctis and Ignis, and his posture looks as defeated as Ignis’s. Gladiolus is standing in front of him, and his hand is resting on Prompto’s upper arm. Gladiolus is speaking—his mouth is moving, and his head is tilted to the side; they’re far enough away, though, that Noctis can’t hear what it is Gladiolus is saying. Whatever it is, Prompto is shrugging, his shoulders lifting up and falling back down. The difference between them—the height and breadth of Gladiolus’s straight shoulders against the melted slump of Prompto’s—is disconcerting. Noctis lets his fingers crook into tighter hooks. 

“Is he alright?” Ignis is sounding more concerned than ashamed, which means he’s sounding more Ignis. 

“He’ll be fine.”

Ignis hums behind Noctis. When his gloved hand touches Noctis’s face, Noctis stiffens, his fingers clenching around the fabric of Ignis’s sleeve. Ignis’s thumb is resting on Noctis’s jaw, and his fingers are pressing against the underside of Noctis’s chin. When Ignis pushes, his fingers lifting, Noctis lets his neck go limp and lets Ignis tilt his head upwards, then to the side.

“Your eyes are swollen,” Ignis says, more and more concern in his tone. Noctis grimaces. Ignis turns Noctis’s head further to side, and Noctis watches as Ignis frowns with obvious unhappiness.

“They’re not that bad,” Noctis tries to offer. Ignis _tsks_ as he lets go of Noctis’s chin.

“Please, Noctis, you’ll only insult the both of us.” Ignis touches Noctis’s face once more, resting the bare skin of the underside of his wrist against Noctis’s temple. Noctis breathes in, and out, and in, and Ignis _tsks_ again as he removes his wrist. “You’re a little hot, and you seem a bit flushed. Are you feeling alright?”

Ignis hasn’t said anything about how Noctis is clinging to his sleeve, and Noctis wonders how Ignis is interpreting it—whether Noctis’s clinginess is tumbling Ignis’s interpretation toward sickness or toward anxiety. Noctis bites his lip, hard enough that he feels the tear open again. Ignis says Noctis’s name, his voice all concern and pity, and Noctis ducks his head low. He wants to sway forward, to let himself fall until Ignis catches him; he wants to hear the _tu-tum_ of Ignis’s heart.

He settles for clutching Ignis’s sleeve like a drowning man clutches a rope. 

“I think it would be for the best,” Ignis says, “if we returned to the haven to rest.”

Noctis covers his eyes with his free hand and swallows down the thickness in his throat so he can say, “That sounds great, Specs.”

x

(There is a scar beneath Ignis’s hair. It sweeps up the back of his skull, running a distant parallel to the curve of his right ear. When they were young—when Ignis was still new, his hair buzzed close to his scalp and his limbs wasted from months of nothingness—the scar had been a thick, raised thing, an angry red that was impossible to ignore. It’s harder to see now; it’s thinned and smoothed out over the years, the angry red fading to bone-like white, and Ignis’s hair covers it really well. 

Noctis knows exactly where it is, though, and he can still pick it out, finding the top of the curve where a pucker of the scar makes a cowlick. He stares at it from the backseat, wondering if any of Ignis’s makers survived Insomnia’s fall.)

x

Noctis isn’t really the most socially fluent person around. He knows he’s pretty damn awkward. He’s pretty shy, and his self-esteem tends to tank a lot, and his workaround to keep from opening his mouth and saying stupid shit is just not to open his mouth or talk at all, which seems to make people—people who don’t really know him—think he’s stuck-up or stand-offish.

And ‘people who don’t really know him’ means most everyone in the entirety of the world, since he has all of three friends (two of whom are employees of his family) and a dozen or so other family friends (most of whom are either—again—employees of his family or royals in other countries). And the dozen or so people who know him isn’t even a dozen or so anymore, not since Insomnia fell along with Noctis’s dad, and Gladiolus’s dad, and Ignis’s makers, and Prompto’s parents, and Astrals knows how many other people who lived in Insomnia and the Citadel. 

So, yeah, Noctis isn’t really that great at that whole social proficiency thing, but he’s good enough to know when things are really awkward, like they are right now. 

The drive back to the haven had been awkward. Ignis had been resistant to the idea of Noctis driving, and Noctis couldn’t blame him since Noctis couldn’t hide how swollen his eyes were or how much his hands were still shaking; Prompto hasn’t been allowed to drive since the disaster just outside Leide, and Gladiolus only drives when there’s no other option. The option in this case had been Ignis driving. 

Ignis had murmured something about feeling recovered from his bout of heatstroke, and Gladiolus had looked at Noctis. When Noctis had raised his eyebrows at him, Gladiolus had said, “Yeah, glad to hear that.”

Other than that, things had been quiet, and Noctis had been able to ignore all the things being left unsaid, turning his attention to the back of Ignis’s head and the scar that is Ignis’s birthmark. 

The atmosphere is a lot more awkward and lot harder to ignore once they get to the haven. Prompto is doing this weird dance-like thing, like he’s trying to find a happy medium of staying out of everyone’s way and staying close enough to make sure no one forgets he exists. On one far side of the _Pretend Everything’s Fine_ scale, Gladiolus is just hugely present, tossing shit around the haven as he sets up the tent again. Ignis is on the other side of the scale, still embarrassed and ashamed. Noctis can see it in the way Ignis keeps himself half-turned away from everyone else in the camp, like that will keep anyone from noticing the way his face is still flushed and his shoulders are still slumped and his hands are curled into fists at his side.

It all makes Noctis feel exhausted. Everything makes Noctis feel exhausted, since Gladiolus had teased Prompto and Ignis had made a stupid joke and Prompto had asked, _What are you afraid of?_ (To be honest, though, Noctis has been tired his entire life, and he doesn’t think that will ever change.)

Dinner’s early that night, probably because cooking gives Ignis an excuse to avoid any conversation. It’s still daylight by the time they finish eating. It’s awful. 

Noctis doesn’t mean to be ungrateful. He should probably tell Gladiolus that he’s thankful for Gladiolus acting so normal, and he should probably tell Prompto that everything’s okay again, and he should probably try to reassure Ignis, and test out the waters of Ignis’s programming—make sure Ignis is settled and sure in his interpretation of today, that Ignis won’t be thrown by some word or gesture, that he won’t cascade through his brain, rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting— 

There are a lot of things that Noctis should probably do, because he is grateful for his friends, and he does love them; it’s fucked up shit like this—trying to explain things he doesn’t really understand, like what (not who) Ignis is—that makes him realize how lucky he is. Maybe he only has three friends, two of whom are employed by Noctis’s family (which is only Noctis now, so maybe he should just say, _employed by Noctis_ ), one of which was created specifically for that employment, but all three of them are still here. 

He’s tired, though, and all he really wants to do is crawl into the tent and crawl into his sleeping bag and crawl into his own head. He wants to pull his pillow over his face, cover his eyes and his mouth and his nose, and just sleep.

Noctis is scraping his spoon along the bottom of his plate, pushing the last bit of sauce back and forth, when Ignis briefly touches his shoulder, then holds out his hand in front of Noctis.

“Plate?”

Noctis hands it to him, and Ignis takes it, but he doesn’t leave right away. He looks down at Noctis instead, frowning at him, and Noctis wishes he had the plate back in his own hands so that he had something else to look at. Noctis has to look back at Ignis, because if he just looks at his empty hands—if he just sits here like an idiot, watching himself twirl his own thumbs—Ignis will think there’s something wrong, or that there’s something Noctis needs. Ignis will reevaluate his compulsions, searching for whichever task needs to be prioritized and accomplished. 

“Are you feeling alright, Noct?” Ignis’s frown deepens when Noctis shrugs. 

The haven is small and all of their chairs are clustered around one side of the fireplace, which means there’s no real privacy to be had. Ignis’s voice is still low, though, like he’s doing what he can to keep from drawing attention to either of them: “You don’t look as flushed, but your eyes are still quite swollen. Perhaps you should turn in early, and try to get some extra rest.”

Noctis is not one to look gift chocobos in the beak. He nods and mutters his agreement before he makes his escape to the tent, not looking at Gladiolus or Prompto as he goes. He must seem so ungrateful. 

The sunlight casts the inside of the tent to a muted gray-green. There’s more than enough light to see by, even after Noctis has zipped the tent flap closed. He stinks, and his skin feels sticky and gritty with sweat and sand; he regrets not washing up better before dinner, but he doesn’t regret it enough to leave the sanctuary of the tent. It’s a small enough regret in the grand scheme of things, a whole lot of nothing compared to all the other regrets in his life. He strips off his dusty clothes and drags on his pajamas and crawls into his sleeping bag, shoving his face into his pillow.

Sleep doesn’t come, though. His brain just keeps turning and turning and turning, replaying the last few hours on loop. He wonders if he said the right things, or if he should’ve tried to explain things another way. He wonders what Prompto is thinking about the Citadel and the Council, about the Caelums. 

It’s not long before he gives it up as a bad job. His sleeping bag is all tangled from him turning back and forth, and it’s a fair struggle to get himself free and sitting upright. He can hear the others outside the tent. No voices, because no one’s said much of anything since early this afternoon, but there’s a clattering that’s probably Ignis cleaning up the cooking station. Noctis digs out his phone and gets to harvesting his zell tree.

He’s still hunched over his phone, running through a story quest for Heysen, when someone begins to open the tent from outside, yanking at the flap’s zipper. Noctis taps the sleep button on his phone mid-quest and tucks his phone beneath his pillow, trying to ignore the way his stomach feels tight and hot with nerves.

“Hey,” Prompto says as he ducks inside. Noctis grunts, and Prompto gives Noctis a sickly-looking smile. This isn’t Prompto’s fault. Noctis knows it’s not Prompto’s fault, and he knows that Prompto is thinking that somehow it is, and he knows that he should be trying to, like, comfort Prompto or something, get him to feel better about everything, but. Well. It’s hard.

Noctis makes a half-hearted effort, though, and tries to smile back at Prompto as he scoots over, making room in the tent.

He watches as Prompto unrolls his sleeping pad and unstuffs his sleeping bag. He wants to fix things. He wants their friendships to stay the same. He wants everything to just go back to the way it was—if not to months ago, before the stupid fake-treaty, then at least to earlier today, before this awkward distance began to grow.

Prompto is smoothing out his sleeping bag, looking really focused on his task, when Noctis blurts out, “I’m glad it happened today.”

Prompto looks stunned—dazed and confused—and Noctis tries to elaborate.

“Everything.” He gestures toward the tent flap. “It just—it could’ve been a lot worse, Prompto. This—” He breathes in and out. “Nothing bad happened,” he says, “and now we know.”

Prompto is staring down at his sleeping bag, and his whole body looks rigid. Noctis can see the lines of tendons and muscles, like Prompto has tensed up his whole body in preparation for fight or flight. 

“Prompto,” Noctis says, “it was a good thing. It could’ve been worse. If it hadn’t been today, it could’ve been a lot worse.”

Prompto nods; the movement is jerky and forced. “Sure.”

Noctis finds himself second-guessing everything. Maybe Prompto didn’t actually want to talk when he came into the tent. Maybe Prompto was actually looking for a chance not to have anyone dogging his heels, yapping in his ears. Maybe everything Noctis is saying to him is actually is unwanted, even if it’s not unneeded, because wants and needs are very different things.

(Maybe Prompto is second-guessing this stupid journey. Maybe Prompto is second-guessing their last few years of friendship. Maybe Prompto is second-guessing _them_ —Noctis and Gladiolus and Ignis.)

He bites down on everything else he wants to say, because chances are he’ll just make things worse. If you can’t say anything nice—or if you can’t say the right thing—then, well, maybe you should just shut up. He pulls his phone back out, hoping he looks a fraction as nonchalant as he’s trying to be. King’s Knight starts up again, right in the middle of the quest he’d paused a few minutes before, and he stares at the screen blankly as he listens to Prompto move beside him.

Heysen goes running off a cliff as Prompto crawls into his sleeping bag. It feels like all of Noctis’s knuckles have turned to stone; his left hand is clutching his phone too tightly, and he’s clumsy when he tries to tap the screen with his right hand. He can hear Prompto breathing a few feet away. He sounds wheezy, like he’s congested—allergies, or maybe from trying not to cry. Levi’s KO’d almost immediately, running into a wall and getting trapped under fire, and Noctis jabs at the screen.

He doesn’t make it much farther in the quest. He manages to run Rubina straight past three chests in a row, and when he’s managed to get her KO’d, too, he gives up, running Diana straight into a group of enemies so he can put himself out of his misery. If this is a metaphor for his life, it’s a little too apt. He halfheartedly toggles through a few of the menu screens, then slides his phone back beneath his pillow. When he looks to the side, he sees that Prompto is lying on his back, his arm lying over his eyes.

If King’s Knight is a metaphor for Noctis’s life, then he’s spending his five Regalite, trying the quest over again as he offers: 

“I took a computer programming class last year.” 

Noctis searches for something to do with his hands while he waits for Prompto’s response. He settles with pulling the zipper of his sleeping bag slowly; the _tink-tink-tink_ of the zipper teeth feels uncomfortably loud in the quiet of the tent. After the eleventh _tink_ , Noctis hears Prompto roll over: the slippery rustle of Prompto’s sleeping bag, the muffled _whump_ as Prompto throws his weight onto his side, Prompto’s grunt. When Noctis glances, Prompto is propped up on his elbow, and he’s looking at Noctis with a tentative curiosity that Noctis recognizes from high school, back when their friendship was new and Prompto seemed weirdly fascinated with every aspect of Noctis’s life, from the mundane to the boring. 

“I didn’t know that.”

Noctis shrugs and looks back down. The zipper teeth _tink_. “I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t even really take it, I was just auditing.” He swallows and admits, “I thought it’d help me understand Ignis better.”

He hears Prompto breathe in, then whisper, “Oh.” 

There are more sounds of movement: the bag’s slip-slide rustling, the rubbery groan of the sleeping pad. Prompto’s laid down on his back again, and he’s looking up toward the roof of the tent. Maybe it’s a compromise—like he can’t look at Noctis, but he’s too nice to turn his back. 

“Did it?”

Noctis sighs and lets go of the zipper pull. “I guess? I dunno. I didn’t really get that far in the class. I kinda freaked out one day, and then I just didn’t go back.”

Prompto gives another quiet, “Oh.”

Noctis is staring down at his hands, at his knuckles and his nails and the faint tan lines from his left glove, when Prompto asks, “Is this why you left during that movie?”

(Noctis doesn’t have to ask what movie. He remembers it vividly, from the stickiness of the theater floors to the way the seats would squeak if you leaned too far back; the smell of popcorn that had clung to every surface. 

It was a sci-fi flick, or maybe an action flick—Noctis hadn’t been sure then, and he’s still not sure now. Prompto had mentioned it during lunch, talking about how it was getting great reviews, how the effects were amazing, how there was a lot of buzz about how it’d do during the awards season. He wanted to go, Prompto had said, and Noctis had said, Yeah, okay, him too.

Noctis had been having a shitty day. Noctis had been having a shitty week. He’d gone home to the Citadel on Sunday for a (two-person) family dinner. His dad had stumbled.

 _I’m fine_ , he’d said when Noctis had helped hold him up, and he’d patted Noctis’s hands. When Noctis had gotten him settled in a chair, he’d reached up and caught Noctis’s head, his hand cupping the curve of Noctis’s skull. He’d pulled Noctis down, and Noctis had gone willingly, leaning down so that his dad could pat his cheek, then kiss his temple. 

_You’re a good boy,_ his dad had said, and Noctis had wondered what the point in being good was if you still had to watch your parents die. 

The rest of the week had felt like the calm before an utter shit-show of a storm, so when Prompto wanted to go to the movie, Noctis had wanted that, too—Noctis had jumped at the chance to do something that wasn’t think about his dad and worry about his dad and dread the very thought of his dad.

The movie, as it had turned out, was about a submarine team diving into the Ishkurian Trench. It was one of those ten-minutes-in-the-future kind of movies, where the technology was just advanced enough to be cool and flashy, but close enough to what Insomnia had to feel real. The flashiest piece was the fifth team member, an android who just seemed like a general ice queen kind of character until the techie on the team opened up the android-character’s face, revealing wires and gears and computer chips and stuff, all in this creepy-as-fuck metal skull. That had been about thirty minutes into the movie, and Noctis had felt his stomach drop. 

A few minutes further into the movie, the android started disobeying orders, stopping the submarine or releasing samples or _something_ , and Noctis had blearily thought, _Ignis can’t do that._ His seat had squeaked when he moved uncomfortably, but squeak sounded more like a wail. He could feel his hands beginning to sweat, and he’d tucked them into his jacket pockets.

That morning, he’d said, _Wait, wait, just a sec—_ while he fumbled with his school bag and textbooks and homework sheets. Ignis had stopped, his hand the door, the latch half-open. The regret had been immediate. Noctis had said, _I’m sorry, Iggy— It’s fine, you can go ahead_ , but Ignis hadn’t moved. He’d waited for Noctis, and waited and waited and waited, until Noctis had managed to put himself to rights, his bag packed and his shoes on. 

There in movie theater, Noctis could nearly hear Ignis ask, _Ready, then,_ like Ignis had stopped and waited of his own volition. When Noctis breathed in, he’d been able to smell popcorn, and it’d tasted rancid on his tongue. 

_I gotta go,_ he’d mumbled, and it had to have been something close to a miracle that Prompto had understood him. 

Prompto had asked, _You okay,_ and Noctis had managed to say, _Yeah, I’m fine. I just forgot I had a meeting._

When Prompto had asked if Noctis wanted him to go with him, Noctis had shaken his head; the strip lights of the aisle had blurred in Noctis’s eyesight, and he’d had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up. He’d said that it was fine, that he was fine, and he’d staggered up from his seat to flee. The sticky floor had grabbed at his feet, pulling at him like the hands of Lucis’s dead kings, and he’d stumbled as badly his dad.

He’d wondered if the theater was trying to pull him down so that it could swallow him whole.)

“Yeah,” Noctis says, and that is that.

x

Noctis is still awake, staring at the tent wall with tired, aching eyes, when Ignis comes in to sleep. He listens as Ignis gets ready for bed—the quiet rustles and thuds of the sleeping pad and bag, the metallic clink of a belt buckle, the shush of clothes being changed. Ignis groans as he lies down between Noctis and Prompto’s sleeping bags; it’s a tired, heavy sound.

The tent is on the small side for four people, and the floor space is cramped enough that their sleeping bags all overlap a bit. It is small enough that Noctis knows if he rolled over, Ignis’s face would only be inches away, close enough to see clearly in the faint light of the haven’s enchantments.

He blinks, and he tugs his sleeping bag up higher over his shoulders. He can hear someone moving behind him—Gladiolus or Prompto, because it’s not close enough to be Ignis. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to sleep tonight, when they’re all stuck in this tiny tent, so cramped it feels like their shoulders will bang together until they’re all bruised.

Ignis moves behind Noctis, shifting and sighing, and Noctis wonders if Prompto is just as awake as Noctis—if Prompto is listening as Noctis whispers, “G’night, Specs—happy dreams.”

“You as well, Noct,” Ignis murmurs, and Noctis closes his eyes.

x

(Prompto doesn’t say much anymore.)

x

There’s a lizard doing weird little pushups on a flat rock just to the side of the road. Noctis slumps down further, the heels of his boots scraping across the gravel. It’s hot out here, all sun-baked earth and electric blue sky, and Noctis wants to lay on the warm earth, take a nap beneath the sun. 

“You’re sure?” Gladiolus asks. The car shifts behind Noctis, like Gladiolus is sitting on the hood or something. Noctis can hear Ignis sigh, and Ignis’s shadow—shortening with the late morning sun—twists and thickens, Ignis’s profile lost as he turns. 

“My margin of error is vanishingly small, Gladio.”

The gravel crunches a few feet away, where Prompto is taking pictures of lizard workouts or whatever. As Noctis watches, Prompto lowers his camera and looks toward the Regalia. His line of sight is higher than Noctis’s head—he’s looking at Gladiolus and Ignis, the kind of tentative, sideways curiosity that Noctis recognizes too well. When Noctis catches Prompto’s eye, Prompto flushes then turns away, his hands pulling his camera close to his body.

x

‘Would you like green curry tonight?” Ignis asks as he turns the Regalia onto the service road leading to Wiz’s. 

Prompto is leaning against the passenger door, his arms and head resting on the open window. His left shoulder twitches like he can’t even bother with shrugging, and Noctis can barely hear him as he mutters, “Anything’s fine.”

x

As soon as the Regalia has come to a stop, Gladiolus is rising up, leaning forward and slapping his hand down on the driver’s seat. It means he’s completely butting in on Noctis’s space, and Noctis scowls at him. Gladiolus doesn’t seem to notice—typical. 

“‘M gonna swing the store, see about stocking up on some stuff. Want me to look for anything, Iggy?”

Ignis _hmms_ as he turns in his seat. His eyes catch Noctis’s, and he smiles. It makes Noctis want to jab Gladiolus with his elbow even more.

“Curatives certainly would not go amiss,” Ignis answers. “Shall I go with you? I believe there should be a weapons dealer as well.”

“Yeah, sure,” Gladiolus says, and he finally gets out of Noctis space, climbing out of his side of the car. “Come along if you want, Iggy.”

x

“You should take a picture,” Noctis says, “with all of us together.”

“Sounds good.” Gladiolus is grinning, and he slings his arm over Ignis’s shoulder, manhandling Ignis into place. Ignis looks quietly pleased with all of this.

Prompto, though, looks listless. He barely looks at the huge arches in the distance before he’s looking down at the camera in his hands. “Yeah, sure. Sounds great.”

x

“Hey, Gladio?” Prompto’s voice asks. “Do you think you could set up Maerklyn? Or another wizard? I wanna run that Malboro quest again.”

Noctis listens with half an ear as he watches his floater. It hasn’t bobbed yet, but he has high hopes. It’s still pretty early in the day; the summer heat hasn’t kicked in yet, and it rained last night, which means the air feels cool and damp. It is a perfect day for fishing.

He hears Gladiolus grunt behind him, then say, “Naw, sorry. I’ve got Vita set up, and the prince will throw a hissy fit if I change her out before he finishes his quests.”

Prompto’s _What? No fair!_ is sharp and kinda pitiful sounding, and Noctis smiles to himself. The floater is still steady.

“Ignis might have somethin’,” Gladiolus’s voice says. “Why don’t you ask him?”

The floater bobs, a tiny movement that has Noctis leaning forward, his attention caught. He barely notices as Prompto says, “Nevermind, I can get it.”

x

(Ignis looks back toward him when he catches Ignis’s wrist. If Noctis looks past Ignis, he can see the undulation of the mind flayers’ tentacles. The moon is nearly full, and it casts enough light to make the mind flayers’ flesh look washed out, like the pale, bloated bodies of drowned things.

“Ignis,” Noctis says, unable to look away from the writhing bodies farther up the hill, “be safe.”)

x

“You’re too bossy,” Noctis says as he catches up to Gladiolus. Gladiolus doesn’t stop—doesn’t even slow down as he looks at Noctis kinda sidelong. “You need to watch what you say to Ignis.” 

“To Ignis,” Gladiolus repeats in a flat, really not-questioning kind of voice. 

“Yeah, to Ignis—”

“Noct, have you heard me say Ignis’s name today? Did I,” Gladiolus asks, talking over Noctis, “say, ‘Hey, Iggy, do me a solid?’”

“That's not the point,” Noctis tries to argue, because he knows Gladiolus understands. Gladiolus reads more than anyone Noctis knows; Gladiolus understands plays and poems in a way Noctis never will. Gladiolus plays with language, twisting his sentences into traps with as much skill as Ignis and Noctis, and with only a fraction of the effort. Gladiolus _knows_ , because Gladiolus knows humans better than either Ignis with his computer chip and Noctis with his employees-as-friends ever will. “You know—”

“What I know,” Gladiolus says, his voice sharp but still low enough that Noctis is pretty sure Ignis and Prompt can’t hear them, “is that I said _someone_ should help Prompto, and that Ignis decided to be that _someone_. It was his choice, so don’t come lookin’ to me.

“If you really want to look to problem, then maybe you should be looking at your friend instead. He needs to get his shit together before he gets himself, or one of us, killed.”

Gladiolus’s words—his accusations—have Noctis feeling wrong-footed, like he missed a step while walking and is now stumbling, trying to keep up with Gladiolus’s mental stride: “I’m handling it—”

“Doesn’t look very handled to me. Look, if he does’t wanna say shit to Iggy, then fine, he doesn’t need to say shit, but right now? Right now he’s acting like Iggy’s got the Starscourge and he’ll catch it if he’s too close. It’s a problem, Noct.”

“I know, just— He needs time.” Noctis hopes that Prompto just needs time—that this uncertainty and distance is something that can fade with time. “This is new to him, he didn’t—he didn’t grow up like us.”

“Noct,” Gladiolus says, “we don’t have time, not like that. You need to fix this. We’ve got a job we need to get done, and I need to know that all of us—” He motions toward Noctis with his finger, then toward Ignis and Prompto farther away. “I need to know that we can all trust each other, ‘kay? I need to know Prompto’s not gonna freeze up or panic ‘cause he has to tell Ignis to get outta the way.”

Noctis nods, and when Gladiolus asks, Noctis says, “Yeah, I know. I get it.”

x

“Nah, it’s fine,” Prompto says.

“If you’re certain.” Ignis definitely sounds uncertain, like what he really wants is to list all the reasons Prompto’s dismissal of help is a Bad Idea, capital letters included. Prompto’s already waved Ignis off, though, skittering away from Ignis with a ducked head and slouching shoulders.

Uncertainty is written all over Ignis’s face, too, like there’s a screen in his brain saying **HTTP 404** every time he tries reloading. Noctis shoves his hands into his trouser pockets and sidles over, watching as Ignis blinks then turns a little toward Noctis, like he’s refocusing—like he’s moving on to a different server.

Noctis bumps his shoulder against Ignis’s, saying, “Hey, Specs.”

x

(“I’m unsure what I’ve done,” Ignis says quietly, “but I believe Prompto is unhappy with me.”

His hand is resting on Noctis’s elbow, holding Noctis back; Prompto and Gladiolus are still walking, getting farther away, but it won’t take long for Gladiolus to realize that Noctis and Ignis have fallen behind.

Noctis moves so that he can see Ignis’s face better, and Ignis’s eyes. “Ignis,” he says, holding eye contact, “don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault, okay?”

[ **Ignis** is a proper noun in the vocative case, identifying the addressee or intended audience of the speech and commanding the addressee/audience’s attention.

 **don’t** is a prohibitive auxiliary verb. _Do_ is an imperative, taking a dropped second-person subject—in this case, the addressee invoked through the previous vocative. Prohibitives are commands of negation, and are formed through the use of the negative modifier _not_ with the imperative _do_. The _do not_ prohibitive auxiliary modifies the mood of the main verb.

 **worry** is an infinitive verb. It functions as the main verb of the statement and is modified by the proceeding auxiliary verb. _Worry_ is functioning as an intransitive verb, taking the previous vocative as its subject. As an intransitive verb, _worry_ takes a dependent preposition and noun as its object.

 **about it** is a dependent preposition and noun phrase. _About_ is the dependent preposition for the intransitive verb _worry_. _It_ is the noun and object of the verb; as an impersonal pronoun, _it_ leaves the object of the verb undefined and fairly broad (e.g., ‘Don’t worry about Prompto’s avoidance,’ ‘Don’t worry about what you might have done,’ or ‘Don’t worry about ’).

 **It** is the impersonal pronoun, now as the subject of the verb. 

**’s not** is an intransitive and copular verb. _Is_ links the subject _it_ to the subject complement _your fault_ ; as a copula, _is_ indicates that the following noun phrase expresses the quality or value of the subject. The attached _not_ negates said quality/value of the subject. 

**your fault** is the subject complement of _it_. The dependent second-person possessive pronoun _your_ agrees with the second-person addressee implied by the vocative _Ignis_ and the prohibitive _don’t_. Additionally, _your_ takes the place of _fault_ ’s definite article.

 **okay?** is functioning as a tag question, seeking consensus and/or confirmation for the declarative statement, _It’s not your fault_.

 **Ignis** [vocative proper pronoun], [dropped 2pc pronoun; subject and agent] **don’t** [prohibitive auxiliary verb] **worry** [infinitive verb] **about it** [dependent preposition, impersonal noun; object and theme]. **It** [impersonal pronoun; subject] **’s not** [3ps intransitive/copular verb, negation] **your fault** [2pc possessive pronoun, noun; subject complement], **okay** [tag question for consensus/confirmation] **?**

In the wider context of addresser and addressee, Noctis is the agent and Ignis is the patient. The command is a prohibitive—a command of negation. Ignis won’t worry about _it_ , because Ignis will no longer be capable of worrying about _it_.

Worrying, though, is different from thinking. Ignis will think about it— _it_ being the impersonal pronoun that allows for such a broad range of definitions. Ignis will think about Prompto’s emotions, and Ignis will think about Prompto’s reactions; Ignis will think about Prompto’s presumed unhappiness, and Ignis will think about what he himself may have done. Ignis will think about it, but he won’t worry about it—worry, with its chemical response, with its sweaty palms and its stomach-twist feeling and its prickle between the shoulder blades, will be impossible for Ignis.

Noctis doesn’t know how or why; if Ignis will think that it’s none of his concern, or if Ignis will think that there are other priorities, or if Ignis will write off Prompto’s distance as an unfortunate necessity, like Ignis neither needs nor deserves friends. Either way—

Either way—

Either way—

Either way, Noctis holds Ignis’s gaze and says slowly and clearly, _It isn’t your fault, okay?_ Eyesight and a steady voice and a firm grip around Ignis’s wrist will convey certainty and truthfulness. Ignis will be compelled to answer in the affirmative— _Of course, Noct_ —because Ignis will be compelled to believe.]

“Of course, Noct,” Ignis murmurs.)

x

“I don’t like him.” Gladiolus is leaning forward, his arm propped against the back of the front passenger seat. Noctis glances back long enough to take in the dark glower on Gladiolus’s face, then turns his attention back to the road and the red car just ahead of them. 

“I imagine we’re all in agreement,” Ignis says. His voice sounds calm, maybe a little bland, but Noctis imagines that Ignis is probably glowering at Ardyn’s car, too—or at least looking at it with with mild to moderate displeasure. “Still, if he can offer us access to the Archaean, a general dislike is a small price to pay.”

“General dislike? Seriously, that’s all you’re saying?” Noctis asks, flicking his eyes up toward the rearview mirror. He can’t catch Ignis’s eyes, but he catches Gladiolus’s just before Gladiolus turns to glower at Ignis instead of Ardyn’s car. 

“Dislike? Iggy, he’s suspicious as hell.”

“And creepy,” Prompto mutters from the passenger seat.

“I think ‘general dislike’,” Gladiolus even accompanies his bitching with finger quotes, the movement broad enough that Noctis catches it in the mirror, “is a little too mild. Look, I just don’t think we should trust him as far as one of the puny kids can throw him. 

Iggy,” Gladiolus continues, talking over Noctis and Prompto’s protests like the ‘general’ asshole he is, “just back me up on this, and make sure no one’s alone with him, ‘specially not them.”

Noctis wants to protest on a lot counts: (A) He’s not that puny, thanks; (B) Gladiolus couldn’t throw a grown-ass man much farther than Noctis, so let’s talk about Messrs. Pot and Kettle; (C) Noctis can fend for himself relatively well, and if nothing else, he can always warpstrike the fuck out of pretty much anything; and (D) Why the hell is Gladiolus giving Ignis commands?

Still, he can see the general point that Gladiolus is driving at, and Ignis is saying, “It would be wise to maintain a sense of caution, particularly given his apparent interest in Noct.”

“That’s all I’m sayin’,” Gladiolus agrees, and when Noctis looks at Gladiolus’s reflection in the mirror again, Glaidolus lifts his chin, asking, “Problem, Noct?”

Noctis shakes his head, and turns his attention back to the road as he flips his turn signal.

x

“If you, uh, need it,” Prompto blurts out, shoving a potion into Ignis’s hand before he pretty much runs away, skittering to the far side of his chocobo where he’s just one more tuft of yellow. 

Noctis licks his lips, then clears his throat so he can ask, “You okay, Ignis?”

Ignis has already looked away from where Prompto’s hiding behind his chocobo; when Ignis looks toward Noctis, his face looks—well. Passive. Indifferent. Unconcerned.

“Quite,” Ignis says, and Noctis nods.

(Worrying is different from thinking.)

x

“I’m pretty sure Ignis thinks you hate him.”

Prompto flinches at Noctis’s words, and that makes Noctis feel like shit. Of course it does—Noctis isn’t an asshole, no matter what some people seem to think. His inter-relational skills could use some work at times, but he knows that. He’s trying.

Ignis has been retreating, though, with this almost constant look of consternation on his face. It’s like he’s reconsidering his place with them—his place in regards to Prompto. That makes Noctis feel like shit, too, so Noctis grits his teeth and bears down and says, “Prompto.”

“I don’t,” Prompto stammers. “I promise, I-I just don’t really know—” Prompto’s shrug is tight with tension, and it leaves his shoulders curled up high on either side of his neck, like a turtle trying to retreat into its shell. He looks so defensive, like he’s just waiting—still waiting—for Noctis to yell at him. “I don’t wanna say something stupid. I’m trying to be careful.”

“Just—” Nocits breathes out heavily, pushing the air out through his teeth. “Don’t avoid him. It’s really obvious, and it’s just gonna make him think he did something wrong.”

“Yeah.” 

Noctis grits his teeth harder. It seems like he can’t fix anything in his life, no matter how big or small. “I’m sorry everything—I’m sorry it’s so hard.”

x

“Shall we visit the market, then?” Ignis’s question doesn’t really seem directed to anyone in particular, so Noctis just shrugs. Prompto, though, answers—or sorta answers—with actual words:

“If you want.” 

It’s a bullshit, noncommittal answer, like Prompto’s still trying to become the poster-child for diffidence. Gladiolus looks over toward Noctis, his eyebrows lifted and his head kinda tilting toward Prompto, like he thinks Noctis won't have noticed. 

Noctis rolls his eyes at Gladiolus, then ducks out of Gladiolus’s reach. It puts him next to Prompto, and he nudges Prompto with his elbow. Prompto’s smile is tight, but he doesn’t lean away from Noctis; Noctis smiles back and says, “C’mon, let’s go see what they’ve got.”

x

“Of course,” Ignis says, and Noctis watches as Prompto tugs at the cuff on his wrist.

x

Prompto trips over the leg of his chair, stumbling way too close to the fire for comfort and yelping, “Crap, crap, crap!”

“You okay?” Noctis asks as he rises from his chair, reaching out, but Prompto manages to find his footing before he face-plants in the fire.

“Yeah, uh, no worries! Sorry, just uh, you know—” The fire is behind him, and its light throws shadows over Prompto’s face, casting him in silhouette. Noctis can make out Prompto’s wide grin, but that’s about all. “Just, uh,” Prompto says again, wagging his hand in a vague sort of way.

Noctis isn’t really sure what Prompto’s gesturing towards, whether it’s supposed to mean that Prompto’s popping off the haven to take a piss, or that Prompto’s heading to the tent, or that Prompto’s gonna go sing ballads to their chocobos. All the options are pretty much equal in likelihood, though the chocobo-wooing has the added bonus of its own amusing appeal. 

Apparently, though, the gesture is supposed to mean _I’m gonna go lurk awkwardly and kinda creepishly near Ignis_ , because that’s what Prompto does: He circles around the fire, taking exaggerated care in stepping over Gladiolus’s stretched out legs, and slinks over toward Ignis, looking weird and sort of hunted. Noctis can’t keep from watching, feeling more than a little nauseated with second-hand embarrassment and discomfort. 

Ignis is cleaning up the cooking station on the far side of the fire, his back to the haven at large. Between the firelight and the haven’s runes, it’s like Prompto and Ignis are under, like, floodlights or something. Noctis catches the way Ignis turns his head a little to the side, enough to see Prompto, then tenses up. 

“Would you, um, like me to help? I could—I could do the dishes.”

It sounds sincere, which isn’t a surprise. Noctis is pretty sure that Prompto can’t be anything but sincere. Ignis takes a step to his left, reaching for a bowl that’s on the far side of the cooking station. The step puts more space between him and Prompto, and Noctis is sure that Prompto notices; Ignis is polite and restrained, but he’s also blunt, this cold indifference that’s always underlaid his interactions with persons outside the royal household. He won’t say, _Get lost_ ; he’ll let his actions say it for him.

( _He’s cool,_ Prompto had said a couple years ago, when he’d only been hanging out at Noctis’s apartment for a few weeks, and Noctis’s life and Noctis’s retinue had to’ve seemed strange and new, _but he seems kinda cold? I dunno, it’s kinda like he’s a machine._ )

Noctis looks down at the fire so he doesn’t have to watch either of them as Ignis answers, “The offer is appreciated, but I am certain I can manage.”

x

(It’s just the two of them right now, and that is why Noctis meets Ignis’s eyes and says, “I want you to be happy.”

With eye contact, _want_ becomes _need_. Noctis doesn’t let himself look away.

Ignis frowns and moves his hand like he wants to feel Noctis’ forehead for a fever, or pat down Noctis’s arms for breaks. Ignis frowns and moves his hand like Noctis is a problem needing to be fixed, an error to be read and understood and corrected.

“Noctis,” Ignis says, “I have always been happy.”)


End file.
